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He had flashes of reason, too. Mary
began to feel a friendly interest in him. To youth in its flush of life
and vigour there seems something so unspeakably sad and pitiable in
feebleness and age--the brief weak remnant of life, the wreck of body
and mind, sunning itself in the declining rays of a sun that is so soon
to shine upon its grave.
'What, are you not proud?' asked the old man.
'Not at all. I have been taught to consider myself a very insignificant
person; and I am going to marry a poor man. It would not become me to be
proud.'
'But you ought not to do that,' said the old man. 'You ought not to
marry a poor man. Poverty is a bad thing, my dear. You are a pretty
girl, and ought to marry a man with a handsome fortune. Poor men have no
pleasure in this world--they might just as well be dead. I am poor, as
you see. You can tell by this threadbare coat'--he looked down at the
sleeve from which the nap was worn in places--'I am as poor as a church
mouse.'
'But you have kind friends, I dare say,' Mary said, soothingly.


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