"Mamma, wasn't it very hard to lose your fortune?"
"Yes, dear," Mrs. Alston answered, simply.
"But we might have been poorer still. There are all the Maybins—and the Allens—and we had a very comfortable home."
"Yes. We owned our cottage, and had an income of just seventy dollars a year. It was a great deal better than nothing, though many a stitch had to be taken to provide for the rest of our needs."
Kathie remembered,—staying in the house to sew long simple seams for mamma, doing errands, washing dishes, sweeping rooms, and wearing dresses that were faded, shoes a little shabby, and never having more than a few pennies to spend. How great the change was! And it did not end with personal comforts merely. Nearly all the rich people in the neighborhood came to visit them. Every one nodded to her as she drove out in her pony-carriage. Yet, if she lost her fortune, would they let her drop out of sight and out of mind? Ah, how very cruel it would be!
"It is a very delightful thing to have an abundance," Mrs. Alston went on, as if she held the key to her daughter's thoughts. "Not that it ever makes a person better, socially or morally, though the world, society, generally gives the precedence to money. It affords you leisure for cultivation; it frees you from a great many harassing cares, though it may bring others in their stead, for no life is exempt. And it certainly does add many new duties."
"It is right to have the cultivation, the pretty houses, the beautiful furniture and pictures and—dresses?"
Kathie asked her question with a sort of hurried abruptness, as if a definite answer was of the utmost importance to her, as if, indeed, she longed for a fuller understanding of the subject.
"Yes," answered her mother, slowly. "All these things were given to us to enjoy, to use, yet not abuse. But when we seek them selfishly, when we think of nothing beyond our own personal needs, and of ministering to our vanity and self-love, they do become a great snare and temptation."
"If one could tell just where the dividing line ought to be," Kathie said, shyly.