, and I don't much care," said Kellett, sulkily. "I
suppose people don't feel, nowadays, the way they used when I was young.
There's new inventions in everything."

"Human nature is the same in all ages!" said she, faintly.

"Faith, and so much the worse for it, Bella. There's more bad than good
in life,--more cruelty and avarice and falsehood than there's kindness,
benevolence, and honesty. For one good-natured act I 've met with,
have n't I met twenty, thirty, no, but fifty, specimens of roguery and
double-dealing. If you want to praise the world, don't call Paul Kellett
into court, that's all!"

"So far from agreeing with you," cried she, springing up and drawing
her arm within his, "you are exactly the very testimony I'd adduce. From
your own lips have I heard more stories of generosity--more instances
of self-devotion, trustfulness, and true kindness--than I have ever
listened to in life."

"Ay, amongst the poor, Bella,--amongst the poor!" said Kellett, half
ashamed of his recantation.

"Be assured, then, that these traits are not peculiar to any class. The
virtues of the poor, like their sufferings, are more in evidence than in
any other condition,--their lives are laid bare by poverty; but I feel
assured people are better than we think them,--better than they know
themselves."

"I 'm waiting to hear you tell me that I 'm richer too," said Kellett,
with a half-melancholy laugh,--"that I have an elegant credit in a bank
somewhere, if I only knew where to draw upon it!"

"There is this wealth in the heart of man, if he but knew how to profit
by it: it is to teach us this lesson that great men have arisen from
time to time. The poets, the warriors, the explorers, the great in
science, set us all the same task, to see the world fair as it really
is, to recognize the good around us, to subdue the erroneous thoughts
that, like poisonous weeds, stifle the wholesome vegetation of our
hearts, and to feel that the cause of humanity is our cause, its
triumphs our triumphs, its losses our losses!"

"It may be all as you say, Bella darling, but it's not the kind of world
ever _I_ saw. I never knew men do anything but cheat each other and tell
lies; and the hardest of it all," added he, with a bitter sigh, "that,
maybe, it is your own flesh and blood treats you worst!"

This reflection announced the approach of gloomy thoughts. This was
about the extent of any allusion he would ever make to his son, and
Bella was car