Honest labor bears a lovely face.

Dekker’s line praises work not for its social prestige but for its moral quality: when labor is “honest,” it carries its own beauty and dignity. The “lovely face” suggests that integrity in earning one’s living is visible—either in the worker’s character or in the public esteem that rightly attaches to fair dealing. In a period when London life was marked by sharp class distinctions and widespread anxiety about poverty, fraud, and “shifts” for survival, the sentiment functions as a corrective: virtue can reside in ordinary toil, and ethical work is a form of personal adornment more reliable than rank or display.