"Well, Walter, here is the hut we inhabit. We have only one girl, as servant. I'll carry up the box. I do pretty nearly everything but clean the shoes." Mrs Kenrick's eyes filled with sad tears at the bitter words; but she checked them to greet Walter, who advanced and shook her by the hand so cordially, and with a manner so respectfully affectionate, that he won her heart at once. "Harry has not yet learned," she said playfully, "that poverty is not a thing to be ashamed of; but I am sure, Walter--forgive my using the name which my boy has made so familiar to me--that you will not mind any little inconveniences during your short stay with us." "Oh, no, Mrs Kenrick," said Walter; "to be with you and him will be the greatest possible enjoyment." "I wish you wouldn't flap our poverty in every one's face, mother," said Kenrick, almost angrily, when Walter had barely left the room. "O Harry, Harry," said Mrs Kenrick, speaking sadly, "you surely forget, dear boy, that it is your mother to whom you are speaking. And was it I who mentioned our poverty first? O Harry, when will you learn to be contented with the dispensations of God? Believe me, dearest, we might make our poverty as happy as any wealth, if we would but have eyes to see the blessings it involves." The boy turned away impatiently, and as he ran upstairs to rejoin his friend, the lady sat down with a deep sigh to her work. It was long ere Kenrick learnt how much his conduct was to blame; but long after, when his mother was dead, he was reminded painfully of this scene, when he accidentally found in her handwriting this extract from one of her favourite authors-- "It has been reserved for this age to perceive the blessedness of another kind of poverty; not voluntary nor proud, but accepted and submissive; not clear-sighted nor triumphant, but subdued and patient; partly patient in tenderness--of God's will; partly patient in blindness--of man's oppression; too laborious to be thoughtful, too innocent to be conscious; too much experienced in sorrow to be hopeful-- waiting in its peaceful darkness for the unconceived dawn; yet not without its sweet, complete, untainted happiness, like intermittent notes of birds before the daybreak, or the first gleams of heaven's amber on the eastern grey. Such poverty as this it has been reserved for this age of ours to honour while it afflicted; it is reserved for the age to come to honour it and to spare." CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. BIRDS OF A FEATHER. What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh even to the utmost scruple; Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys, That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander. Much Ado about Nothing, act 5, scene 1.