“Oh no, I'm not in earnest,” said the girl, letting her wrists fall upon her knees, and the clusters drop from her hands. “I'm not in earnest about anything; that's the truth—that's the shame. Wouldn't you like,” she broke off, “to be a priest, and go round among these people up here on their frozen islands in the winter?”
“No,” shouted Mavering, “I certainly shouldn't. I don't see how anybody stands it. Ponkwasset Falls is bad enough in the winter, and compared to this region Ponkwasset Falls is a metropolis. I believe in getting all the good you can out of the world you were born in—of course without hurting anybody else.” He stretched his legs out on the bed of sweet-fern, where he had thrown himself, and rested his head on his hand lifted on his elbow. “I think this is what this place is fit for—a picnic; and I wish every one well out of it for nine months of the year.”
“I don't,” said the girl, with a passionate regret in her voice. “It would be heavenly here with—But you—no, you're different. You always want to share your happiness.”
“I shouldn't call that happiness. But don't you?” asked Mavering.
“No. I'm selfish.”
“You don't expect me to be believe that, I suppose.”
“Yes,” she went on, “it must be selfishness. You don't believe I'm so, because you can't imagine it. But it's true. If I were to be happy, I should be very greedy about it; I couldn't endure to let any one else have a part in it. So it's best for me to be wretched, don't you see—to give myself up entirely to doing for others, and not expect any one to do anything for me; then I can be of some use in the world. That's why I should like to go into a sisterhood.”
Mavering treated it as the best kind of joke, and he was confirmed in this view of it by her laughing with him, after a first glance of what he thought mock piteousness.