fair rose will be as well and cheerful in Mrs. Stephens's room as in
ours."

12. "Well, after all, how odd! When one gives to poor people, one wants to
give them something useful--a bushel of potatoes, a ham, and such things."

13. "Why, certainly, potatoes and ham must be supplied; but, having
ministered to the first and most craving wants, why not add any other
little pleasures or gratifications we may have it in our power to bestow?
I know there are many of the poor who have fine feeling and a keen sense
of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because they are too hard
pressed to procure it any gratification. Poor Mrs. Stephens, for example;
I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, and music as much as I do. I
have seen her eye light up as she looked upon these things in our drawing.
room, and yet not one beautiful thing can she command. From necessity, her
room, her clothing,--all she has, must be coarse and plain. You should
have seen the almost rapture she and Mary felt when I offered them my
rose."

14. "Dear me! all this may be true, but I never thought of it before. I
never thought that these hard-working people had any ideas of taste!"

15. "Then why do you see the geranium or rose so carefully nursed in the
old cracked teapot in the poorest room, or the morning-glory planted in a
box and twined about the window? Do not these show that the human heart
yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life? You remember, Kate, how our
washerwoman sat up a whole night, after a hard day's work, to make her
first baby a pretty dress to be baptized in." "Yes, and I remember how I
laughed at you for making such a tasteful little cap for it."