"And I'm sure he knows," said Clara.
"They would waste more than they would eat," said Emmeline. "Besides, it is so hard to cook it as it should be cooked; sometimes it seems impossible to make it soft."
"So it does," said Clara, sadly; "but if we could only have it hot for them when they come for it, wouldn't that be better?"
"The great thing is to have it for them at all," said Mary the wise (for she had been studying the matter more deeply than her friend); "there are so many who as yet get none."
"Herbert says that the millers will grind up the husks and all at the mills, so as to make the most of it; that's what makes it so hard to cook," said Emmeline.
"How very wrong of them!" protested Clara; "but isn't Herbert going to have a mill put up of his own?"
And so they went on, till I fear they kept the Castle Richmond dinner waiting for full fifteen minutes.
Castle Richmond, too, would have been a dull house, as Lady Fitzgerald had intimated, had it not been that there was a common subject of such vital interest to the whole party. On that subject they were all intent, and on that subject they talked the whole evening, planning, preparing, and laying out schemes; devising how their money might be made to go furthest; discussing deep questions of political economy, and making, no doubt, many errors in their discussions.
Lady Fitzgerald took a part in all this, and so occasionally did Sir Thomas. Indeed, on this evening he was more active than was usual with him. He got up from his arm-chair, and came to the table, in order that he might pore over the map of the estate with them; for they were dividing the property into districts, and seeing how best the poor might be visited in their own localities.
And then, as he did so, he became liberal. Liberal, indeed, he always was; but now he made offers of assistance more than his son had dared to ask; and they were all busy, contented, and in a great degree joyous—joyous, though their work arose from the contiguity of such infinite misery. But what can ever be more joyous than efforts made for lessening misery?