“Oh, no, Mrs Kenrick,” said Walter; “to be with you and him will be the greatest possible enjoyment.”
“I wish you wouldn’t flap our poverty in every one’s face, mother,” said Kenrick, almost angrily, when Walter had barely left the room.
“O Harry, Harry,” said Mrs Kenrick, speaking sadly, “you surely forget, dear boy, that it is your mother to whom you are speaking. And was it I who mentioned our poverty first? O Harry, when will you learn to be contented with the dispensations of God? Believe me, dearest, we might make our poverty as happy as any wealth, if we would but have eyes to see the blessings it involves.” The boy turned away impatiently, and as he ran upstairs to rejoin his friend, the lady sat down with a deep sigh to her work. It was long ere Kenrick learnt how much his conduct was to blame; but long after, when his mother was dead, he was reminded painfully of this scene, when he accidentally found in her handwriting this extract from one of her favourite authors—
“It has been reserved for this age to perceive the blessedness of another kind of poverty; not voluntary nor proud, but accepted and submissive; not clear-sighted nor triumphant, but subdued and patient; partly patient in tenderness—of God’s will; partly patient in blindness—of man’s oppression; too laborious to be thoughtful, too innocent to be conscious; too much experienced in sorrow to be hopeful—waiting in its peaceful darkness for the unconceived dawn; yet not without its sweet, complete, untainted happiness, like intermittent notes of birds before the daybreak, or the first gleams of heaven’s amber on the eastern grey. Such poverty as this it has been reserved for this age of ours to honour while it afflicted; it is reserved for the age to come to honour it and to spare.”
Chapter Twenty Two.
Birds of a Feather.
What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh even to the utmost scruple;
Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander.
Much Ado about Nothing, act 5, scene 1.
Walter could not help hearing a part of this conversation, and he was pained and surprised that Kenrick, whom he had regarded as so fine a character, should show his worst side at home, and should speak and act thus unkindly to one whom he was so deeply bound to love and reverence. And he was even more surprised when he went downstairs again and looked on the calm face of his friend’s mother, so lovely, so gentle, so resigned, and felt the charm of manners which, in their natural grace and sweetness, might have shed lustre on a court. All that he could himself do was to show by his own manner to Mrs Kenrick the affection and respect with which he regarded her. When he hinted to Kenrick, as delicately and distantly as he could, that he thought his manner to his mother rather brusque, Kenrick reddened rather angrily, but only replied, “Ah, it’s all very well for you to talk; but you don’t live at Fuzby.”