"Yes, I know," said Nora, somewhat impatiently. "But then, I do think it would be better, for us as well as for them, if we were to try to make it better for them now! That was what the Good Samaritan did—you spoke of just now, wasn't it, when the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side?"
"Undoubtedly, as you say, that is best for us, as it is for them," he replied. "Yes, the life for others is the true life.
"'The quality of mercy is not strained,
It blesses him that gives and him that takes.'"
Mr. Chillingworth always rendered the quotation so as to convey the impression that the "giver" was a good deal more to be considered than the "taker."
"Well, Nora did her duty as a Good Samaritan," interposed Mrs. Blanchard, tired of being left out of the conversation. "She stayed in that wretched room all night, and sat up with the poor woman. I only wonder she didn't catch something dreadful, herself."
"Is it possible!" the clergyman exclaimed. "But that seems too great a sacrifice on your part. Was there no one else at hand?"
"Yes," said Nora, with a touch of satire in her tone. "There was a poor girl, a mill hand, who had been working all day, and sitting up at night with this poor sick woman. I thought that was too great a sacrifice!"
Mr. Chillingworth's dark eyes lighted up. "Ah," he said, "such scenes transfigure the dark places of life, do they not?"
Nora sighed—a little impatient sigh. She could not, it seemed, convey to the mind of any one else the intolerance she felt of a social state in which such hard conditions of life could prevail, for any portion of humanity. Every one about her seemed to acquiesce resignedly in the inevitable.
"And so you have added to your kindness, that of taking in the poor woman's child?" he continued.