"But what do you mean by rising? If you mean in material things, in wealth
and the power over others that it gives--"
"I don't mean that altogether. But there are other ways--in cultivation,
refinement, higher tastes and aims than the great mass of people can have.
You have risen yourself, Mr. Peck."
"I have risen, as you call it," he said, with a meek sufferance of the
application of the point to himself. "Those who rise above the necessity of
work for daily bread are in great danger of losing their right relation to
other men, as I said when we talked of this before."
A point had remained in Annie's mind from her first talk with Dr. Morrell.
"Yes; and you said once that there could be no sympathy between the rich
and the poor--no real love--because they had not had the same experience of
life. But how is it about the poor who become rich? They have had the same
experience."
"Too often they make haste to forget that they were poor; they become hard
masters to those they have left behind them. They are eager to identify
themselves with those who have been rich longer than they. Some working-men
who now see this clearly have the courage to refuse to rise. Miss Kilburn,
why should I let you take my child out of the conditions of self-denial and
self-help to which she was born?"
"I don't know," said Annie rather blankly. Then she added impetuously:
"Because I love her and want her. I don't--I _won't_--pretend that
it's for her sake. It's for _my_ sake, though I can take better care
of her than you can. But I'm all alone in the world; I've neither kith nor
kin; nothing but my miserable money. I've set my heart on the child; I must
have her. At least let me keep her a while. I will be honest with you, Mr.
Peck. If I find I'm doing her harm and not good, I'll give her up. I should
wish you to feel that she is yours as much as ever, and if you _will_
feel so, and come often to see her--I--I shall--be very glad, and--" she
stopped, and Mr. Peck rose.
"Where is the child?" he asked, with a troubled air; and she silently led
the way to the kitchen, and left him at the door to Idella and the Boltons.
When she ventured back later he was gone, but the child remained.
Half exultant and half ashamed, she promised herself that she really would
be true as far as possible to the odd notions of the minister in her
treatment of his child. When she undressed Idella for bed she noticed again
the shabbiness of her poor little clothes. She went through the bureau that
held her own childish things once more, but found them all too large for
Idella, and too hopelessly antiquated. She said to herself that on this
point at least she must be a law to herself.