In some mysterious way Sophia felt that she did know, although she could not in any way formulate her confused feeling of kinship with this young girl, so far removed from her in outward experience. It seemed to her that she had at some time known such trouble as this, which was composed of wanting "so much—so much," and hands that were stretched, not towards any living thing, but vaguely to all possible possession outside the longing self.
"I want to be something," said Eliza, "rich or—I don't know—I would like to drive about in a fine way like some ladies do, or wear grander clothes than any one. Yes, I would like to keep a shop, or do something to make me very rich, and make everybody wish they were like me."
Sophia smiled to herself, but the darkness was about them. Then Sophia sighed. Crude as were the notions that went to make up the ignorant idea of what was desirable, the desire for it was without measure. There was a silence, and when Eliza spoke again Sophia did not doubt but that she told her whole mind.
It is a curious thing, this, that when a human being of average experience is confided in, the natural impulse is to assume that confidence is complete, and the adviser feels as competent to pronounce upon the case from the statement given as if minds were as limpid as crystal, and words as fit to represent them as a mirror is to show the objects it reflects. Yet if the listener would but look within, he would know that in any complicated question of life there would be much that he would not, more than he could not, tell of himself, unless long years of closest companionship had revealed the one heart to the other in ways that are beyond the power of words. And that is so even if the whole heart is set to be honest above all—and how many hearts are so set?
"You see," said Eliza, "if people knew I had lived on a very poor clearin' and done the work, they'd despise me perhaps."
"It is no disgrace to any one to have worked hard, and it certainly cannot be a disadvantage in this country."
"It was rough."
"You are not very rough, Eliza. It strikes me that you have been pretty carefully trained and taught."
"Yes, I was that"—with satisfaction. "But don't you think, if I got on, grand people would always look down at me if they knew I'd lived so common? And besides, I'm sometimes afraid the man that went shares at the land with father will want to find me."
"But you said you told him you were coming away."