“I like giving things,” said Bess, superbly. “It seems to make you happier.”
“Yes,” I answered; “but gifts are best when we give something that we want ourselves.”
“Don’t you want the blankets, mama?” asked Bess, abruptly.
“Well, not exactly, dear,” I answered. “Giving them didn’t mean that I had to go without my dinner, or even had to give up ordering my seed list this morning.”
“Must one really do that,” asked Bess sadly, “before one can give anything?”
“Perhaps, little one,” I said, “to taste the very best happiness.” Then there was a little pause, which was at last broken by Bess turning crimson and saying—
“Mamsie, I think it must be very, very difficult to be quite, quite happy.”
GIFTS TO THE POOR
I did not explain, but saw from Bess’s expression that I had sown a grain of a seed, and wondered when it would blossom. Then we turned round and slipped down the hill at a brisk rattle, all the dogs following hotly behind, to an old dame who had long had a promise of a blanket. The old body came out joyfully and stood by her wicket gate, beaming with pleasure. It is an awful thing, sometimes, the joy of the poor over some little gift. It brings home to us at times our own unworthiness more than anything else.
Old Sukey, as she is called by her neighbours, took her blankets from Bess with delight. “I shall sleep now,” she said, “like a cat by the hearth, come summer come winter,” and her old wrinkled face began to twitch, and tears to rise in her poor old rheumy eyes. “Pretty dear,” she said to Bess, “’tis most like a blow itself. I wish I had a bloom to offer, but ’tis only a blessing now that I can give thee.”