up
the whole previous question that had been troubling her, about the rich
and the poor, and quite gave a peculiar flavour to what she was
tasting. She lost some of Norton's talk about bulbs.

"Norton," she exclaimed at last suddenly, "I have found it!"

"Found what?" said Norton. "Not a blue tulip?"

"No, not a blue tulip. I have found the answer to that question you
asked me,--you know,--in the cars."

"I asked you five hundred and fifty questions in the cars," said
Norton. "Which one?"

"Just before we got to Poughkeepsie, don't you remember?"

"No," said Norton laughing. "I don't, of course. What was it, Pink? The
idea of remembering a question!"

"Don't you remember, you asked me if I didn't like poverty and poor
people, for the same reason I liked other things?"

But here Norton's amusement became quite unmanageable.

"How _should_ you like poverty and poor people for the same reason you
like other things, you delicious Pink?" he said. "How should you like
those smoky coats in the omnibus, for the same reason that you like a
white hyacinth or a red tulip?"

"That is what I was puzzling about, Norton; you don't recollect; and I
could not make it out; because I knew I _didn't_ enjoy poverty and poor
things, and you said I ought."

"Excuse me," said Norton. "I never said you ought, in the whole course
of my rational existence since I have known you."

"No, no, Norton; but don't you know, I said I liked everything, waves
of the river and all, because God made them? and you thought I ought to
like poor people and things for the same reason."

"O, that!" said Norton. "Well, why don't you?"

"That is what I could not tell, Norton, and I was puzzling to find out;
and now I know."

"Well, why?"

"Because, God did _not_ make them, Norton."

"Yes, he did. Doesn't he make everything?"

"In one way he does, to be sure; but then, Norton, if everybody did
just right, there would be no poor people in the world; so it is not
something that God has made, but something that comes because people
won't do right."

"How?" said Norton.

"Why Norton, you know yourself. If everybody was good and loved
everybody else as well as himself, the people who have more than enough
would give to the people who are in want, and there would not be
uncomfortable poor people anywhere. And that is what the Bible says.
'He that hath two coats,'--don't you remember?"

"No, I don't," said Norton. "Most people have two coats, th