“Let me give you twenty pounds, so that you may leave it with your uncle by way of your two mites, as you call it.”
“No, no, certainly not. I might just as well send you the milliner’s bill, might I not?”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t do that.”
“Ah, but I do. You wouldn’t wish me to be guilty of the pretence of giving a thing away, and then doing it out of your pocket. I have no doubt that what you were saying about the evil of promiscuous charity is quite true.” And then, as she flattered him with this wicked flattery, she looked up with her bright eyes into his face. “But now, as the things are, we must be charitable, or the people will die. I feel almost like a rat leaving a falling house, in going away at this time; and if you would postpone it——”
“Nora!”
“Then I must be like a rat, but I won’t be a rat in a white silk gown. Come now, say that you agree. I never asked you for anything before.”
“Everybody will think that you’re mad, and that I’m mad, and that we are all mad together.”
“Because I go to church in a merino dress? Well; if that makes madness, let us be mad. Oh, Fred, do not refuse me the first thing I’ve asked you! What difference will it make? Nobody will know it over in Philadelphia!”
“Then you are ashamed of it?”
“No, not ashamed. Why should I be ashamed? But one does not wish to have that sort of thing talked about by everybody.”