if I can alter you

Dear papa! if he had troubled himself less about the afflictions that threatened us in case of his death, I am convinced that dreaded event would not have taken place so soon. My mother would never suffer him to ponder on the subject if she could help it.
'Oh, Richard!' exclaimed she, on one occasion, 'if you would but dismiss such gloomy subjects from your mind, you would live as long as any of us; at least you would live to see the girls married, and yourself a happy grandfather, with a canty old dame for your companion.'
My mother laughed, and so did my father: but his laugh soon perished in a dreary sigh.
'THEY married--poor penniless things!' said he; 'who will take them I wonder!'
'Why, nobody shall that isn't thankful for them. Wasn't I penniless when you took me? and you PRETENDED, at least, to be vastly pleased with your acquisition. But it's no matter whether they get married or not: we can devise a thousand honest ways of making a livelihood. And I wonder, Richard, you can think of bothering your head about our POVERTY in case of your death; as if THAT would be anything compared with the calamity of losing you--an affliction that you well know would swallow up all others, and which you ought to do your utmost to preserve us from: and there is nothing like a cheerful mind for keeping the body in health.'
'I know, Alice, it is wrong to keep repining as I do, but I cannot help it: you must bear with me.'
'I WON'T bear with you, ,' replied my mother: but the harshness of her words was undone by the earnest affection of her tone and pleasant smile, that made my father smile again, less sadly and less transiently than was his wont.
'Mamma,' said I, as soon as I could find an opportunity of speaking with her alone, 'my money is but little, and cannot last long; if I could increase it, it would lessen papa's anxiety, on one subject at least. I cannot draw like Mary, and so the best thing I could do would be to look out for another situation.'
'And so you would actually try again, Agnes?'
'Decidedly, I would.'
'Why, my dear, I should have thought you had had enough of it.'
'I know,' said I, 'everybody is not like Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield--'
'Some are worse,' interrupted my mother.
'But not many, I think,' replied I, 'and I'm sure all children are not like theirs; for I and Mary were not: we always did as you bid us, didn't we?'
'Generally: but then, I did not spoil you; and you were not perfect angels after all: Mary had a fund of quiet obstinacy, and you were somewhat faulty in regard to temper; but you were very good children on the whole.'
'I know I was sulky sometimes, and I should have been glad to see these children sulky sometimes too; for then I could have understood them: but they never were, for they COULD not be offended, nor hurt, nor ashamed: they could not be unhappy in any way, except when they were in a passion.'
'Well, if they COULD not, it was not their fault: you cannot expect stone to be as pliable as clay.'