“Can you?” asked Elsie, the old mischief coming quickly back. “Can you make your sister, Mrs. Mason, get down on her knees and beg me to marry you to save you from a decline?”
“I’ll try,” said Herbert with a grimace, “although I beg to be delivered from the decline.”
CHAPTER XIX.
Like Byron, Margaret awoke one day and found herself famous. The daily press, in keeping close watch of the anarchist movement, had reported nearly verbatim the speeches of both Gilbert and Margaret. Editorials had been written upon Margaret’s utterances, and one enterprising daily had printed a supposed portrait of her and given a brief account of her work in the tenement-house, wherein she had been glorified beyond her just deserts and made to wear the mantle of the professional reformer. Margaret was by no means pleased with this unexpected notoriety, and particularly displeasing to her sensitive nature was the attitude in which she had been made to stand with reference to those whom she had sought to aid in the quietness and sympathy of her home life. As a friend, she was sure of their appreciation and co-operation; as a reformer, she felt fearful of their mistrust and the gradual withdrawal of the sympathies she had grown to depend upon for her own guidance and happiness. It was, therefore, with no little vexation of spirit that she found herself waited upon one day by a committee of ladies who urged her going upon the platform as the advance agent of a board of foreign missions.
“It is impossible,” cried Margaret when the object of the visit had been explained. “I am not fitted for such work. Indeed, it was a mere accident which caused my appearance in public, and I hope never to repeat it.”
The ladies looked at each other aghast. Here was good timber obviously going to waste. Something must be done to secure it. “But,” they argued, “you must have the interests of our work at heart, as your utterances gave evidence and as your work in your own home circle proves. Why not be willing to broaden it and bring the suffering ones of earth, whom you evidently pity, a little relief?”
“Because,” said Margaret, smiling, “I believe, in the truest sense, in the old saying that ‘Charity begins at home.’ I have a home to make, first of all, for a young brother and sister who look upon me as mother and guardian. So long as they have need of me I shall always keep for them the one spot where home ties may reign supreme. In the next place, I shall doubtless horrify you by saying that I do not believe in charity.”
A look of wide-eyed dismay went around the little circle.
“But let me qualify the ruggedness of so bare a statement,” said Margaret as a look of quiet amusement crept over her face. “I have reference only to the charity which is practised under present conditions. In the first place, I think we have heathen enough to convert at home; in the second, if there were more of the genuine charity which was taught by our great Preceptor, there would be scant need of the various forms of associated charity. Modern charity belittles and robs men of the God-given sense of independent manhood which should be cultivated and respected in every one. The helping hand that is given by associated charity fosters a national laziness and sloth which grows every year more wide-spread and disgraceful.”
“That is a most astounding statement,” cried her hearers.