Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/112

104 "Here, Armie, I cannot follow you. I am content with the providential ordering of the world."

"Of course you are, papa, on fifty thousand a year."

"You interrupt me. I say I am content with the social structure as built up by civilization."

"I have no doubt about it—you are a peer. But what I want to know is, how do the providential and social arrangements look to the Fredericks with the Empty Pockets, not what aspect they wear to Maximilian and Le Grand Monarque. Do you suppose that Captain Saltren is content that his livelihood should be snatched from him; or Patience Kite that her father and mother should have died, leaving her in infancy a waif; or Samuel Ceely, that he should have blown off his hand and blown away his life's happiness with it, and dislocated his hip and put his fortunes for ever out of joint thereby, so as to be for ever incapacitated from making himself a home, and having a wife and little children to cling about his neck and call him father?"

"Old Sam was not all he ought to have been before he met with his accidents."

"Nor are any of us all we ought to be. Papa, why should it have fallen to your lot to have two wives, and Samuel Ceely be denied even one?"

"Upon my word, Armie, I cannot tell."

"I do not suppose you can see how those are who live on the north side of the hill always in shade and covered with mildew, when you bask on the south side always in sun, where the strawberries ripen early, and the roses bloom to Christmas."

"I beg your pardon, child, I have had my privations. We cannot afford to go to town this season. I have had to make a reduction in my rents of twenty per cent. I get nothing from my Irish property, cannot sell my bark, lose by my manganese. Are you satisfied?"

"No, papa, your privations are loss of luxuries, not of