"The way one goes on!" said that lady, picking away at her beans very fast, and not answering Alice's question; "I'm tired of it; toil, toil, and drive, drive, from morning to night and what's the end of it all?"
"Not much," said Alice, gravely, "if our toiling looks no further than this world. When we go we shall carry nothing away with us. I should think it would be very wearisome to toil only for what we cannot keep, nor stay long to enjoy."
"It's a pity you warn't a minister, Miss Alice," said Miss
Fortune, drily.
"Oh, no, Miss Fortune," said Alice, smiling, "the family would be overstocked. My father is one, and my brother will be another a third would be too much. You must be so good as to let me preach without taking orders."
"Well, I wish every minister was as good a one as you'd make," said Miss Fortune, her hard face giving way a little; "at any rate, nobody'd mind anything you'd say, Miss Alice."
"That would be unlucky, in one sense," said Alice; "but I believe I know what you mean. But, Miss Fortune, no one would dream the world went very hard with you. I don't know anybody, I think, lives in more independent comfort and plenty, and has things more to her mind. I never come to the house that I am not struck with the fine look of the farm, and all that belongs to it."
"Yes," said the old lady, nodding her head two or three times; "Mr. Van Brunt is a good farmer very good there's no doubt about that."
"I wonder what he'd do," said Miss Fortune, quickly and sharply, as before, "if there warn't a head to manage for him! Oh, the farm's well enough, Miss Alice tain't that; every one knows where his own shoe pinches."
"I wish you'd let me into the secret, then, Miss Fortune; I'm a cobbler by profession."
Miss Fortune's ill-humour was giving way, but something disagreeable seemed again to cross her mind. Her brow darkened.