"It is the safer place of the two, Cousin Bessie, don't you think so?"
"Well, if I did not think it, Amey, my life would hardly be worth living," she answered with a quiet emphasis.
"Why? You don't think you will always be down, do you?" I asked timidly, plunging a cup and saucer into the boiling water.
"I don't know; we were better off once, in one way, but it is a long time ago," she answered, taking a large white apron from a peg beside her in the wall, and offering it to me, "Put this over your dress, child, and take off your pretty rings," she put in parenthetically, and then went on—
"Robert was a man of wealth when we married, we had a fine house with servants and horses and every such luxury—while the money was there he lavished it upon us: but he lost heavily one year, there was a bank failure first, and a series of smaller misfortunes followed quickly in its wake. We had to sacrifice house and horses, and all, and come down the ladder to our present station. The children found it hard in the beginning, but they have come to look upon it now, nearly as their father and I do."
"But you are not poor, cousin Bessie," I interrupted, as I dried a plate briskly with my linen cloth.
"No: not poor exactly: but we must be careful and economical for awhile, until Zita and Louis are educated: we will make every sacrifice that is necessary to grant them a thorough education. When they are rich in knowledge they won't mind how empty their purses are; they will feel themselves equal to the best in the land. When they have finished their courses here, if they show themselves susceptible to a still higher training, we will make still greater restrictions upon our household expenses to favor any particular talent they may have developed. Robert and I decided that long ago."
"I suppose it is a good plan," I said half doubtfully, "if it does not unfit them for their after-life."
"You mean it may raise them above their station?" cousin Bessie interrupted eagerly. "Well, you are not the only one who thinks that, but it never shall. We have seen such a possible danger ahead and have laboured to avert it I have done my utmost all their lives to bring them up to frugal habits. We have taught them to live sparingly in every way; to shun those people and places that tempt one to idle amusements and questionable pastimes, and never to seek the society of such persons as are brought up to pity or ridicule poverty and struggling gentility. They are fond of one another, and in their mutual companionship do not miss the intercourse which is denied them with the outside world. I have explained to Zita that the saint whose name she bears was a poor servant-maid, who was looked down upon and ignored by those who were better favored by the world; and that like her, she must be poor and humble in spirit, satisfied to be a little nobody here if she can be happy hereafter. Louis learned the story of his royal patron saint when he was a lisping baby at my knee, and understands now, I think, how secondary material prosperity is to the advancement of the moral man. I am almost sure he could wear a crown and rule a nation, and yet look upon such glories as mere accidents of existence, that must be subject to higher aims and occupations."
"Then you are happy in the possession of very exceptional children, Cousin Bessie," said I, shaking my towel and hanging it up to dry. My task was finished, and I sat down beside my industrious cousin who was now up to her elbows in a basin of flour.