Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,
rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever
sneering people may say, what is good and what is happy are the
same. Be unselfish, and whenever you can, give a helping hand
to others -- for the world is full of suffering, my dear, and
to alleviate it is the noblest end that we can set before us.
If you do that you will become a sweet and God-fearing woman,
and make many people's lives a little brighter, and then you
will not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain. And
now I have given you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I
am going to give you something to sweeten it with. You see this
little piece of paper. It is what is called a cheque. When
we are gone give it to your father with this note -- not before,
mind. You will marry one day, my dear little Flossie, and it
is to buy you a wedding present which you are to wear, and your
daughter after you, if you have one, in remembrance of Hunter
Quatermain.'
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her
bright hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave
her was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and
having no calls upon me except those of charity, I could well
afford), and in the note I directed her father to invest it for
her in Government security, and when she married or came of age
to buy her the best diamond necklace he could get for the money
and accumulated interest.
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