"Enthusiasm put sparks into her dark eyeballs which were turned up to her father's face. Darvid stroked her pale, golden hair.
"My dear child," said he, "my little one!" After a while he added: "Are you a wild girl from Australia or Africa to ask me such questions? You have seen visits from childhood. Have you not seen your mother receiving many visitors, also?"
"Yes, yes, father; but mamma amuses herself with them, and is taking Ira into society. But what are visits to you? Are you amusing yourself, also?"
"How amuse?" laughed Darvid, "they annoy me oftenest of all, though an odd time they give me pleasure."
"What pleasure?"
"You do not understand this yet. Relations, position in the world, significance."
"What do you want of significance, father; why do you wish for a high position in society? What profit does significance give? Does it give happiness? See, father, I know one little history—Miss Mary's father, an English clergyman, has a parish in a poor, far-away corner, where there are no people of significance, and no rich men, but there are many poor and ignorant people there; and he has significance only among those poor people—that is, he has no significance whatever, still he is so happy, and all those people are so happy. They love one another, and live together. It is so warm and bright in that pastor's house, there, among the old trees. Miss Mary came away from there to get a little money for her youngest sister, whom she loves dearly. She lives pleasantly here, but she yearns for her family, and has told me so much of them; and some time, father, I will beg you to let me go with Miss Mary to England, to that poor country parish, and see that great, warm, bright happiness which exists in it."
Tears glittered like diamonds in her gleaming eyes, and Darvid, with his arm around her slender waist, stood silent, in deep meditation. That child, by her questions, had let his thoughts down, as if by a string, to the bottom of things, at which he had never looked before—he had had no time. He might tell her that high significance in the world tickles vanity, flatters pride, helps, frequently, to carry business to a profitable conclusion—that is to pecuniary profit. He might confess to himself, also, that that English clergyman, in his quiet parsonage, under his ancient trees, seemed to him a very happy man all at once in that moment. After a while, he said:
"It must be so. Happiness and unhappiness are one thing for poor people, and another for the rich."
He looked at the clock.