“Well,” said the woman, “there’s not many cares about a bad-tempered, bed-ridden woman, but you’re one of them that’s been kind.  I don’t say much, but I know.”

“You make me nearly cry,” said Anne, drawing the bag out of the oven and feeling its temperature.  Holding it against her chest, as if to keep in its heat, she drew back the bed-clothes and unbuttoned the flannelette night-gown of the invalid, laying the poultice against her wasted side.  The woman gave a sob and lay still for a minute.

“It’s a lot better,” she said.

“Perhaps you could sleep a bit,” suggested Anne.

“I’d like a cup o’ tea,” said the woman, “but it’s a lot of trouble.  Can’t you look where you’re going!” she broke out impatiently, as Anne, turning quickly, caught her foot in the chair, overturning it with a crash.  “You made me jump so.”

“Well, I am sorry,” said Anne, humbly.

“Never mind,” said the bed-ridden woman, her impatience exhausted.  At that moment the door opened with a bang and a stout, middle-aged woman entered noisily.

“What a noise you make!” said the bed-ridden woman peevishly.  “You’re getting too fat.”

“Fat people’s better-tempered than thin ones,” retorted the other carelessly.  “Good evening, Miss Hilton!  Has she been telling you all she’s got to put up with more than other people?”

“Well now,” returned Anne with decisive heartiness, “I don’t think we’ve been speaking about herself at all, except to express gratitude for a very little service that I did her.  We’ve spent a pleasant hour together.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said the woman, going to the fire and rattling the irons noisily between the bars.

“You noisy thing.  Can’t you make a less din!” said the bed-ridden woman, biting her lip.

“Other people’s got to live in the house besides you,” said the woman.  “If you want so much attention, you know where you can get it.”

The bed-ridden woman shut her eyes and lay still at this threat of the workhouse, that confession of failure, in a world where ability to work becomes a kind of morality, and lack of physical strength to procure the means of subsistence a moral downfall.  She was a burden, but a burden against her will, and her pride, the only luxury of the poor and the one most often wrested from them, rose in a futile resistance.  It must come to that she knew.  She knew that she could not be less comfortable or more neglected, but her shelter would be gone, and she would be acknowledged publicly a failure.

When this last pride is taken away, there sometimes appears a kind of patience which is not really that of despair, but which is nearer to that attained by great saints after long effort and discipline—­the mental equilibrium which is the result of desire quenched, of expectation for further good for oneself at an end.  What the saints attain by a painful and mortifying life, the poor receive as a gift from the tender mercies of the world, receiving also the passionate pity of Jesus, “Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”