"I cannot quite say that, Mr. Faxon," she gravely replied, "for I should be glad of an independent income--even though it was small--that would enable me to do more for my father and put him under the constant care of experts; for, in spite of what the physicians have told me, I cannot quite give up all hope. I cannot bear to think that he must live on indefinitely in his present darkened mental condition.
"But as for myself," with an uplifting of her pretty head that denoted conscious strength, "I do not regret the experience of the last two years which the loss of fortune has brought me, and which has proved to me that it is more noble and satisfactory to be a useful woman than a butterfly of fashion. As for the 'friends of fortune,' that was well put, Mr. Faxon, for those who have turned the cold shoulder upon me were simply that and nothing more, and there is nothing to regret. It is far better to have discovered the truth than to go on being cajoled and deceived. I may say that there are but few whom I can regard as true friends, and most of those I have made since I became a working girl. What a queer world it is, isn't it? What a strange element there is in humanity, which, as a rule--though there is now and then a rare exception--does not take into account the real worth of an individual, but is ready to hug to the heart a mental beggar and a moral leper, provided he is sufficiently gilded with money. Can you explain it?"
"I think it can all be summed up in one word, Miss Heatherford, and that is--selfishness," Clifford replied.
"Y--es," she thoughtfully assented, "and yet I think I should add pride, vanity and ostentation."
"And what is pride but self-esteem, self-conceit? What are vanity and ostentation but egotism and self-sufficiency?"
"You are right!" said Mollie, sitting suddenly erect, as if some new thought had taken possession of her. "Why! I never thought of it before, but the world--society so-called--is governed by selfishness!"
"I am afraid that is the fact, as a rule," assented the young man.
"How dreadful!" sighed his companion; "what veritable heathen idolaters we are, in spite of our boasted civilization and Christianity; and how little we know the meaning of the 'Golden Rule!'"