"Tell me, are you happy? Do you suffer?"
"Happy? only the rich are happy. Suffer? of course I suffer. All the pore suffers."
"Poor thing! May I come and see you and bring you things?"
"Of course you may."
"And you will tell me about yourself?"
"Child, child!" cried the old woman impatiently. "Tell you about myself? There, there, you're one of them the Lord loves—wife and mother; happy life and happy death; childer and grandchilder; but far away, far away."
Mrs. Medlicott gave Phillis her first insight into that life so near and yet so distant from us. She should have been introduced to the ideal cottage, where the stalwart husband supports the smiling wife, and both do honour to the intellectual curate with the long coat and the lofty brow. Where are they—lofty brow of priest and stalwart form of virtuous peasant? Remark that Phillis was a child; the first effect of the years upon a child is to sadden it. Philemon and Baucis in their cot would have rejoiced her; that of old Mrs. Medlicott set her thinking.
And while she drew from memory the old fortune-teller in her cottage, certain words of Abraham Dyson's came back to her:
"Life is a joy to one and a burden to ninety-nine. Remember in your joy as many as you can of the ninety-nine.
"Learn that you cannot be entirely happy, because of the ninety-nine who are entirely wretched.