I confess I felt glorious over my cousin Judy; but I would bide my time. Now that I am wiser, and I hope a little better, I see that I was rather spiteful; but I thought then I was only jealous for my new and beautiful friend. Perhaps, having wronged her myself, I was the more ready to take vengeance on her wrongs from the hands of another; which was just the opposite feeling to that I ought to have had. In the mean time, our intimacy with Miss Clare grew. She interested me in many of her schemes for helping the poor; some of which were for providing them with work in hard times, but more for giving them an interest in life itself, without which, she said, no one would begin to inquire into its relations and duties. One of her positive convictions was, that you ought not to give them any thing they _ought_ to provide for themselves, such as food or clothing or shelter. In such circumstances as rendered it impossible for them to do so, the _ought_ was in abeyance. But she heartily approved of making them an occasional present of something they could not be expected to procure for themselves,--flowers, for instance. "You would not imagine," I have heard her say, "how they delight in flowers. All the finer instincts of their being are drawn to the surface at the sight of them. I am sure they prize and enjoy them far more, not merely than most people with gardens and greenhouses do, but far more even than they would if they were deprived of them. A gift of that sort can only do them good. But I would rather give a workman a gold watch than a leg of mutton. By a present you mean a compliment; and none feel more grateful for such an acknowledgment of your human relation to them, than those who look up to you as their superior." Once, when she was talking thus, I ventured to object, for the sake of hearing her further. "But," I said, "sometimes the most precious thing you can give a man is just that compassion which you seem to think destroys the value of a gift." "When compassion itself is precious to a man," she answered, "it must be because he loves you, and believes you love him. When that is the case, you may give him any thing you like, and it will do neither you nor him harm. But the man of independent feeling, except he be thus your friend, will not unlikely resent your compassion, while the beggar will accept it chiefly as a pledge for something more to be got from you; and so it will tend to keep him in beggary." "Would you never, then, give money, or any of the necessaries of life, except in extreme, and, on the part of the receiver, unavoidable necessity?" I asked.