Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look upward of unspeakable recognition—he, without doubt, seeing now, beyond us blind.
XIX
THE BASIN
"What I thought first when I saw you—I never mind that now."
Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and afflicted may have good hope to be sustained!
There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would have married me for my wealth and name.
But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time—if all things failed her—should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me, for pity—for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love.
Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur—alas! so much slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M——; there are none, even among the rich and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!"
But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait.