“Of course, Gwen, I don’t know about him. You never can tell about other folks, but Uncle Seth thinks it’s a mighty safe rule ‘to put yourself in his place’; and if I were in Robin’s I’d be ‘mad as a hatter’ to have money offered me for doing a little thing like that. Wouldn’t you?”
“Why, yes, Dorothy, of course I would. The idea! But I’m rich, or my people are, which is the same thing. But he’s poor. His feelings may not, cannot, be the same as our sort have.”
“Why can’t they? I don’t like to have you think that way. You ought not. Gwen you must not. For that will make us break friendship square off. I’m not poor Dawkins’s niece, though I might be much worse off than that, but once I was ‘poor’ like Robin. I was a deserted baby, adopted by a poor letter carrier. Now, what do you think of that? Can’t I have nice feelings same as you? And am I a bit better—in myself—because in reality I belonged to a rich old family, than I was when I washed dishes in Mother Martha’s kitchen? Tell me that, before we go one step further.”
Dorothy had stopped short in the hall and faced about, anxiously studying the face of this “Peer,” who had now become so dear to her.
Gwendolyn’s face was a puzzle; as, for a time, the old opinions and the new struggled within her. But the struggle was brief. Her pride, her justice, and now her love, won the victory.
“No, you darling, brave little thing, you are not. Whatever you are you were born such, and I love you, I love you. If I’d only been born in the States I’d have had no silly notions.”
“Don’t you believe that, Gwen. Aunt Betty says that human nature is the same all the world over. You’d have been just as much of a snob if you’d been ‘raised in ol’ Ferginny’ as you are here. Oh! my! I didn’t mean that. I meant—You must understand what I mean!”
A flush of mortification at her too plain speaking made Dorothy hide her face, but her hands were swiftly pulled down and a kiss left in their place.
“Don’t you fret, Queenie! It’s taken lots of Mamma’s plain speaking to keep me half-way decent to others less rich than I, and I’m afraid it’ll take lots of yours, too, to put the finishing touches to that lesson. Come on. We love each other now, and love puts everything right. Come on. Let’s find that Robin and see what we can do for him without hurting his feelings.”