"I think I see," murmured Mildred. "Thank you. I—I'll try to remember."
He lifted his hat, uncovering the long grey hair, and moved quietly away, passing out of sight. Mildred stayed where she was, pondering his words. The feeling of utter isolation had vanished. She looked round upon the graves, meditating on the finished earthly lives of those who had been laid to rest; and then she gazed towards the village, trying to feel that in very truth she had many brothers and sisters living there, whose particular needs it was her duty to search out, perhaps even to supply.
Even she, Mildred Pattison, weak in body, and poor in money, she might supply some of those needs. For the most crying want of all, belonging to every heart of man, is the want of sympathy, and no man or woman ought to be so poor as to have no sympathy to bestow. That would be the worst and direst form of poverty, because it would be poverty, not merely of body, but of spirit.
The fact began to dawn upon Mildred, that the happiness of Old Maxham people was to some extent dependent upon herself. She might make some among them more happy or less happy. She had to take her choice which of the two it should be; but she could not refuse both alternatives. Each person in the world is always making those around either happier or unhappier than such individuals would otherwise be; and Mildred could be no exception to this rule. Every smile, every frown, every hasty utterance, every kind word, adds to the weight of the scale, one way or the other way, with respect to somebody.
And the happiness of each person in the world is the particular concern of all other persons who have to do with that one person. If all are brothers and sisters in the sight of our Heavenly Father, then each brother and each sister has some portion of the happiness of the rest in his keeping; and if one member of the family is in need or suffering, then it is everybody's business to help him.
Mildred did not say all this to herself in so many words; but a faint vision of the truth dawned upon her, and it was followed by a resolve. If something was due from her to others, even in Old Maxham, where nobody in a certain sense could be said to "belong to her," then she would endeavour to do that something. If she might not attempt much, she would be content to attempt little, but she would not remain idle and indifferent.
Rather curiously, the first suggestion which came to her mind was of the little girl who had smiled at her, and had had no smile in return. Mildred woke up to the fact of the child's disappointment, and was sorry for it. Looking back to her own childish days, she knew how small a matter could make a little one feel sad.
When she rose to go home, it was a positive relief outside the Churchyard to come across the very same child again, in her pink sunbonnet and apron. This time the blue eyes glanced up soberly, with the least possible edging of the tiny person away to a wider distance; but Mildred smiled her kindest, and the rosy lips parted instantly in response.
"What is your name, dear?" asked Mildred.
"I'm Posie. Posie Number Two. And they call me Pet, 'cause there was the other Posie, you know."