But I thought to
myself: Suppose she grows up to be a good woman--suppose I can
teach her to look at things in the same way as I do myself, train
her to feel that no happiness could be greater than the power to put
an end to ever so little of the want and wretchedness about her--
suppose when I die I could have the certainty that all this money
was going to be used for the good of the poor by a woman who herself
belonged to the poor? You understand me? It would have been easy
enough to leave it among charities in the ordinary way; but my idea
went beyond that. I might have had Jane schooled and fashioned into
a lady, and still have hoped that she would use the money well; but
my idea went beyond _that_. There's plenty of ladies nowadays taking
an interest in the miserable, and spending their means unselfishly.
What I hoped was to raise up for the poor and the untaught a friend
out of their own midst, some one who had gone through all that they
_suffer_, who was accustomed to earn her own living by the work of
her hands as _they_ do, who had never thought herself their better,
who saw the world as they see it and knew all their wants.
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