"Do you know, Mr. Graeme, if I were a man, I think I should be a 'Knight' too!"
He laughed. "But you know our modern 'Knights' are not always men!" he replied.
CHAPTER XVI.
A LUNCHEON-PARTY.
It need scarcely be said that, after this, Miss Blanchard always looked out for The Brotherhood, and scanned its contents with much interest. She was pleased—even a little surprised—by the temperate and moderate tone in which it set forth existing wrongs and grievances, and appealed to the sense of justice and humanity of those with whom it lay to remedy them. She was not, of course, a very critical reader, and was happily ignorant of the practical difficulties that lie in the way of great reforms; and it seemed to her that such a cause, so advocated, must be sure to win the day. In particular, trained as she had been to look upon Christian practice as an essential part of Christianity, she could not believe that any professing Christian could withhold sympathy from pleadings which carried her own, as a matter of course. She had, from her childhood, been given to wondering how it was, that the very poor could bear the hardships of their lot as contentedly as they did; and now that, from the statistics and details which Roland Graeme industriously collected for his paper, she realized how much greater these hardships were, for many, than she had ever before imagined, she thought, in her simplicity, that every one who knew of them must desire to do something to lighten them. Her imagination was fired, too, by the idea, now presented to her for the first time, that hard, grinding poverty need not always prevail on the scale on which it now exists; that it is within the right and the duty of man to remove much of it. Such a hope, she thought, might well inspire to a new Crusade, far more truly Christian in its aims and methods than were those half-heathen wars of old, which took that sacred name.
But, except from her brother, whose experiences as a medical man had prepared him to agree with her on most of these questions, Nora found that she could secure little sympathy, or even toleration, for such "new-fangled notions." Most people would agree that, of course, there were many hard cases, just as there was misery of all kinds in the world, which could not be helped; but they would shake their heads discouragingly over each proposed remedy, which "was sure" to involve new evils greater than the disease, till she wondered if there must always be "a lion in the way" of every undertaking for the good of humanity.
She found she had not even Mr. Chillingworth on her side, when she somewhat timidly ventured to express herself to him on the subject of The Brotherhood, at a grand luncheon-party at Mrs. Farrell's, a few days after the dinner at Mr. Pomeroy's. It was chiefly a "ladies' luncheon," also given in honor of Miss Harley; but two or three gentlemen were especially privileged, including Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Wharton, who were not supposed to be engaged at that early hour.
Mr. Chillingworth was a good deal surprised when he found that Miss Blanchard actually claimed Mr. Graeme as an acquaintance; and, furthermore, that she entered with so much sympathy into his views of social questions. Somehow, Mr. Chillingworth did not find it easy to reconcile his sense of her grace, refinement and culture, with a "movement" that he vaguely associated with vulgar "strikes," violence, and other democratic developments, from which his æsthetic sensitiveness shrank with utter repugnance.
"Undoubtedly, my dear Miss Blanchard," he said, "there are many directions in which reform is needed. The poverty about us is but one, and reform cannot come by any sudden or artificial means; the only cure for this, as for all evils, is the radical cure from within—the spirit of Christ acting on individual hearts. Much of the poverty, also, arises from the faults of the poor themselves. Many of them would be miserable in any case. And, you know, even our divine Master said, 'The poor ye have always with you.'"