"These people aren't your people," said Norton.
"They are your people," said David.
"They are not! I have nothing to do with them, and it is no use—Davie Bartholomew, you know it's no use—to try to help them. Pink is so tender-hearted, she wants to help the whole world; and it's all very well for her to want it; but she can't; and I can't; and you can't."
"But we can help Sarah Staples," Matilda ventured.
"And then you may go on to help somebody else, and then somebody else; and there's no end to it; only there's this end, that you'll always be poor yourself and never be able to do anything you want to do."
Norton was unusually heated, and both his hearers were for a moment silenced.
"You know that's the truth of it, Davie," he went on; "and it's no use to encourage Pink to fancy she can comfort everybody that's in trouble, and warm everybody that is cold, and feed everybody that is hungry, because she just can't do it. You can tell her there is no end to that sort of thing if she once tries it on. Suppose we all went to work at it. Just see where we would be. Where would be Pink's gold watch, and her picture? and where would be her gold bracelet? and where would my greenhouse be? And where would this house be, for that matter? and the furniture in it? and how should we all dress? Your mother wouldn't wear velvet dresses, that you like so much; and mine wouldn't wear that flimsy muslin stuff that she likes so much; and grandmamma's lace shawl would never have been mended, for it never would have been here to get burnt. It's all a lot of nonsense, that's what it is."
"There is law about it, though," David began again gravely.
"Law?" Norton echoed.
"The law of my people."