see no harm in people making much of themselves
in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of
others. But now--what I mean by the word--we never _do_ make much of
ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poor
of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty.

"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the
end of the year to make all meet,--and much ado we used to have every
Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings--many a
long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to
make it out how we had spent so much--or that we had not spent so
much--or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year--and
still we found our slender capital decreasing--but then, betwixt ways,
and projects, and compromises of one sort or another and talk of
curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future--and the
hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never
poor till now), we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with 'lusty
brimmers' (as you used to quote it out of _hearty, cheerful Mr.
Cotton_[8], as you called him), we used to welcome in the 'coming
guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year; no
flattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

Bridget is so sparing of her speech, on most occasions, that when she
gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could
not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear
imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor ---- hundred
pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we
were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the
excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should
not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew
up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened and
knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to
each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain
of. The resisting power, those natural dilations of the youthful spirit,
which circumstances can not straiten--with us are long since passed
away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry supplement
indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride where we
formerly walked: live better and lie softer--and shall be wise to do
so--th