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This is luxury, if the truth be known. My ancient and basic farmhouse still doesn’t have a bathroom at all. But times are changing. Even my own brother won’t stay at the old home for want of his own comfort. My mother would have said I’m getting ideas above my station, that staying overnight in Noel’s renovated mansion, and now a hotel, will be the ruin of me. It’s only now that it occurs to me that my mother had truly accepted the church’s teachings, that we were poor by the grace of God. Actually, I think, looking around at this evidence of a once-privileged family’s home, it was the rich who promoted that concept, not God. After all, if everyone had aspirations of grandeur, how would they remain superior, and who would do all the work?
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