“Why, as to that, I may mistake; but—you seem inclined to settle down and be satisfied with poverty.”
“Having food and raiment,” said Mary, smiling with some archness, “to be therewith content.”
“Yes, but”—the physician shook his head—“that doesn’t mean to be satisfied. It’s one thing to be content with God’s providence, and it’s another to be satisfied with poverty. There’s not one in a thousand that I’d venture to say it to. He wouldn’t understand the fine difference. But you will. I’m sure you do.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I know you do. You know poverty has its temptations, and warping influences, and debasing effects, just as truly as riches have. See how it narrows our usefulness. Not always, it is true. Sometimes our best usefulness keeps us poor. That’s poverty with a good excuse. But that’s not poverty satisfying, Mary”—
“No, of course not,” said Mary, exhibiting a degree of distress that the Doctor somehow overlooked.
“It’s merely,” said he, half-extending his open palm,—“it’s merely poverty accepted, as a good soldier accepts the dust and smut that are a necessary part of the battle. Now, here’s this little girl.”—As his open white hand pointed toward Alice she shrank back; but the Doctor seemed blind this afternoon and drove on.—“In a few years—it will not seem like any time at all—she’ll be half grown up; she’ll have wants that ought to be supplied.”
“Oh! don’t,” exclaimed Mary, and burst into a flood of tears; and the Doctor, while she hid them from her child, sat silently loathing his own stupidity.
“Please, don’t mind it,” said Mary, stanching the flow. “You were not so badly mistaken. I wasn’t satisfied, but I was about to surrender.” She smiled at herself and her warlike figure of speech.
He looked away, passed his hand across his forehead and must have muttered audibly his self-reproach: for Mary looked up again with a faint gleam of the old radiance in her face, saying:—