“Only think how fortunate!” exclaimed he. “Just come in here to this drawing-room, and give me your advice.”
“Willingly,” said she, with a courtesy the more marked because his manner indicated a seriousness that betokened trouble.
“My father has just dismissed me to cogitate over this epistle; as if, after all, when one has read a letter, that any secret or mystical interpretation is to come by all the reconsideration and reflection in the world.”
“Am I to read it?” asked Kate, as he placed it in her hand.
“There is nothing confidential or private in it which I ought not to see?”
“Nothing; and if there were,” added he, warmly, “_you_ are one of ourselves, I trust,--at least _I_ think you so.”
Kate's lips closed with almost stern % impressiveness, but her color never changed at this speech, and she opened the letter in silence. For some minutes she continued to read with the same impassive expression; but gradually her cheek became paler, and a haughty, almost scornful, expression settled on her lips. “So patient are they in their trials,” said she, reading aloud the expression of Mary's note. “Is it not possible, Captain Martin, that patience may be pushed a little beyond a virtue, and become something very like cowardice,--abject cowardice? And then,” cried she impetuously, and not waiting for his reply, “to say that now is the time to show these poor people the saving care and protection that the rich owe them, as if the duty dated from the hour of their being struck down by famine, laid low by pestilence, or that the debt could ever be acquitted by the relief accorded to pauperism! Why not have taught these same famished creatures self-dependence, elevated them to the rank of civilized beings by the enjoyment of rights that give men self-esteem as well as liberty? What do you mean to do, sir?--or is that your difficulty?” cried she, hastily changing her tone to one of less energy.
“Exactly,--that is _my difficulty_. My father, I suspect, wishes me to concur in the pleasant project struck out by Mary, and that, by way of helping _them_, we should ruin _ourselves_.”
“And _you_ are for--” She stopped, as if to let him finish her question for her.
“Egad, I don't know well what I'm for, except it be self-preservation. I mean,” said he, correcting himself, as a sudden glance of almost insolent scorn shot from Kate's eyes towards him,--“I mean that I 'm certain more than half of this account is sheer exaggeration. Mary is frightened,--as well she may be,--finding herself all alone, and hearing nothing but the high-colored stories the people brings her, and listening to calamities from morning to night.”