I have made us both beggars, Addie, my love."
"Well, dearest papa, you can bear a little poverty surely?"
"It's not of myself I am thinking, my darling. Don't do me that injustice,
or I shall behave like a fool. It's only you I am thinking of."
"Oh, is that all, papa? Do you know that, if it were not for your sake, I
could sing a song about it!"
"Ah! you don't know what you make so light of. Poverty is not so easy to
endure."
"Papa," said Adela, solemnly, "if you knew how awful things looked to me
a little while ago--but it's all gone now!--the whole earth black and
frozen to the heart, with no God in it, and nothing worth living for--you
would not wonder that I take the prospect of poverty with absolute
indifference--yes, if you will believe me, with something of a strange
excitement. There will be something to battle with and beat."
And she stretched out a strong, beautiful white arm--from which the loose
open sleeve fell back, as if with that weapon of might she would strike
poverty to the earth; but it was only to adjust the pillow, which had
slipped sideways from the loved head.
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