“I should think so!” said Margaret. “You need not make a favour of that!”
“Yes, but, don’t you see, that came as almsgiving, in the way which brings a blessing. We want nothing to make us give money and work to Cocksmoor. We do all we can already; and I don’t want to get a fine bag or a ridiculous pincushion in exchange!”
“Not you, but—”
“Well, for the rest. If they like to offer their money, well and good, the better for them; but why must they not give it to Cocksmoor—but for that unnatural butterfly of Blanche’s, with black pins for horns, that they will go and sell at an extortionate rate.”
“The price will be given for Cocksmoor’s sake!”
“Pooh! Margaret. Do you think it is for Cocksmoor’s sake that Lady Leonora Langdale and her fine daughter come down from London? Would Mrs. Hoxton spend the time in making frocks for Cocksmoor children that she does in cutting out paper, and stuffing glass bottles with it? Let people be honest—alms, or pleasure, or vanity! let them say which they mean; but don’t make charity the excuse for the others; and, above all, don’t make my poor Cocksmoor the victim of it.”
“This is very severe,” said Margaret, pausing, almost confounded. “Do you think no charity worth having but what is given on unmixed motives? Who, then, could give?”
“Margaret—we see much evil arise in the best-planned institutions; nay, in what are not human. Don’t you think we ought to do our utmost to have no flaw in the foundation? Schools are not such perfect places that we can build them without fear, and, if the means are to be raised by a bargain for amusement—if they are to come from frivolity instead of self-denial, I am afraid of them. I do not mean that Cocksmoor has not been the joy of my life, and of Mary’s, but that was not because we did it for pleasure.”
“No!” said Margaret, sighing, “you found pleasure by the way. But why did you not say all this to Flora?”
“It is of no use to talk to Flora,” said Ethel; “she would say it was high-flown and visionary. Oh! she wants it for the bazaar’s own sake, and that is one reason why I hate it.”