"How ought I to enjoy so much more than she has?"
"Modestly, I should think."
"What do you mean?"
"If you were to give the half of your fortune to one such, for instance," he said with a slight smile, "do you fancy you would have adjusted two scales of the social balance to hang even?"
"No," said Elizabeth, — "I suppose not."
"You would have given away what she could not keep; you would have put out of your power what would not be in hers; and on the whole, she would be scantly a gainer and the world would be a loser."
"Yet surely," said Elizabeth, "something is due from my hand to hers."
Her companion was quite silent, rather oddly, she thought; and her meditations came back for a moment from social to individual distinctions and differences. Then, really in a puzzle as to the former matter, she repeated her question.
"But what can one do to them, then, Mr. Winthrop? — or what should be one's aim?"
"Put them in the way of exercising the talent and industry and circumstance which have done such great things for us."