“For me, you would say. We must be speaking of quite different things, I am sure. I only mean that I can listen to the troubles and grievances of anyone who likes to talk of them to me, and try to comfort them a little, and to make things look brighter, and to keep cheerful. It is not easy always even to do this.”
“It is not, indeed. But would it not be easier if you could do as I suggest? Going out of one's own class, and trying to care for and help the poor, braces the mind more than anything else.”
“You ought to know my cousin Katie,” said Mary, glad to make a diversion; “that is just what she would say. Indeed, I think you must have seen her at Oxford; did you not?”
“I believe I had the honor of meeting her at the rooms of a friend. I think he said she was also a cousin of his.”
“Mr. Brown, you mean? Yes; did you know him?”
“Oh, yes. You will think it strange, as we are so very unlike; but I knew him better than I knew almost any one.”
“Poor Katie is very anxious about him. I hope you thought well of him. You do not think he is likely to go very wrong?”
“No, indeed. I could wish he were sounder on Church questions, but that may come. Do you know that he is in London?”
“I had heard so.”
“He has been several times to my schools. He used to help me at Oxford, and has a capital way with the boys.”