"It is something I saw the other day," said Hester sadly. "I wish I could be sunny and light-hearted like you."
"The reason of the difference is partly in our temperaments, but it is a good deal because I had to be happy in self-defence from the trials that began early for me," said Rob, with the keen wisdom that underlay her merry ways. "You had your path made smooth; I had to be jolly to keep up myself and the others. If you had worked as I did with a frail, sensitive, beloved father, and had seen your brave mother trying to win a fight where the odds against her were too heavy to count, you'd have learned what virtue lay in a laugh. I don't mean to preach, Hester, but you ought to be satisfied to love and to be loved, and wait your life's meaning cheerfully. But what did you see?"
"Father had to go to a tenement district to look over some property there which a client talked of buying," said Hester. "I begged to be taken with him, and, though he objected, saying I was sober enough without seeing misery, he let me have my way—as he usually does, the dear, kind father! I saw, Robin, a cripple boy that was heartrending. I never, never shall forget him, nor get over the feeling that I have no right to my comforts while there is such as he. No; don't interrupt. I know all that reason can tell me on that head, because father talked to me, and he is not merely just—though that's the highest sort of kindness—but he is tenderly kind as well, we both know that. But the feeling remains after I have reasoned and reasoned. Then, after that poor, poor child, I saw others, crippled, maimed, and all incurable. What can be done with them, except leave them in the slums, to be maimed in mind as well as in body?"
Hester stopped, her eyes overflowing. Rob put out her hand with a responsive moisture in her own bright eyes.
"Dear Hessie, I beg your pardon. I suppose our point of view is different, and very likely I am wrong, and you are right in taking life so hard," she said.
"No, Rob; but you have your work in your family, which needs you, while I am free, and I can't help thinking I ought to find mine. Such sights make me sure that having money, I have no right to use it for teas, receptions, dancing gowns—all that sort of thing," said Hester earnestly.
"While we Greys, though we are freed from all our old worries, have only enough income to live plainly, and help one another," added Rob, finishing the thought Hester felt afraid to voice. "Then, here in Fayre there is no such misery as you see in town, and when I go in to visit you I see only New York's splendour. Go on, Hester; what have you in mind?"
Hester flushed, and rose. "I don't know precisely, and I see the others, coming back, so I can't talk my thoughts into shape with you as I meant to. It will have to wait. But I know one thing: I can not possibly rest till I find out exactly what it is that is in my mind. Isn't Lester fine; don't you like him?"
"How can I help it, when he is so like his uncle?" retorted Rob. "There is no other man in the world equal to your father, Hester, or whom I love so much."
"Not Battalion B?" suggested Hester, fearing to narrow her question to one member of that battalion.