don't see what he has to complain of."

"But that is not the question," interrupted Hester. "It is not whether
he has anything to complain of, but whether he has anything to be pitied
for. I don't know what I wouldn't do to make that old man clean and
comfortable!"

Cornelius again burst into a great laugh. No man was anything to him
merely because he was a man.

"A highly interesting protege you would have!" he said; "and no doubt
your friends would congratulate you when you presented him! But for my
part I don't see the least occasion to trouble your head about such
riffraff. Every manufacture has its waste, and he's human waste. There's
misery enough in the world without looking out for it, and taking other
people's upon our shoulders. You remember what one of the fellows in the
magic lantern said: 'Every tub must stand on its own bottom'!"

Hester held her peace. That her own brother's one mode of relieving the
suffering in the world should be to avoid as much as possible adding to
his own, was to her sisterly heart humiliating.




CHAPTER IV.

HESTER ALONE.