thought memorable. One of them I remember to this day. It was
apropos of my saying that there is a danger of its own kind in
extreme poverty. A young man might know too much want. She answered
me: "True! That is so! But there is a danger that overrides it;"
and after a time went on:

"It is better not to know wants than not to know want!" I tell you,
boy, that is a great truth, and I hope you will remember it for
yourself as well as a part of the wisdom of your mother. And here
let me say something else which is a sort of corollary of that wise
utterance:

I dare say you thought me very hard and unsympathetic that time I
would not, as one of your trustees, agree to your transferring your
little fortune to Miss MacKelpie. I dare say you bear a grudge
towards me about it up to this day. Well, if you have any of that
remaining, put it aside when you know the truth. That request of
yours was an unspeakable delight to me. It was like your mother
coming back from the dead. That little letter of yours made me wish
for the first time that I had a son--and that he should be like you.
I fell into a sort of reverie, thinking if I were yet too old to
marry, so that a son might be with me in my declining years--if such
were to ever be for me. But I concluded that this might not be.
There was no woman whom I knew or had ever met with that I could love
as your mother loved your father and as he loved her. So I resigned
myself to my fate. I must go my lonely road on to the end. And then
came a ray of light into my darkness: there was you. Though you
might not feel like a son to me--I could not expect it when the
memory of that sweet relationship was more worthily filled. But I
could feel like a father to you. Nothing could prevent that or