"I'll wait for Aunt Katrina," said Winthrop, taking a chair near her. "Knitting for the poor, I suppose. Do you know, I always suspect ladies who knit for the poor; I suspect that they knit for themselves—the occupation."
"So they do, generally. But this isn't for the poor; don't you see that it's silk?"
"You could sell it. In the Charity Basket."
"What do you know of Charity Baskets?" said Margaret, laughing. "But I'm afraid I am not very good at working for the poor; the only thing I ever made—made with my own hands, I mean—was a shirt for that eminent Sioux chieftain Spotted Tail, and he said it did not fit."
"They don't want shirts, they want their land," said Winthrop. "We should have made them take care of themselves long ago, but we shouldn't have stolen their land. I'm not thinking of Lo, however, at present, I am thinking of that poor little woman down at East Angels. I am afraid she is very ill. Do you know, I cannot help suspecting that the sudden change in her prospects has had something to do with her illness; I mean the unexpected vision of what seems to her prosperity. She has kept up unflinchingly through years of struggle, and I think she could have kept up almost indefinitely in the same way, for Garda's sake, if she had had the same things to encounter; but this sudden wealth (for, absurd as it is, so it seems to her) has changed everything so, has buried her so almost over her head in plans, that the excitement has broken her down. You probably think me very fanciful," he concluded, realizing that he was speaking almost confidentially.
"Not fanciful at all; I quite agree with you," answered Margaret, her head still bent over her knitting.
"She has asked for you a number of times, Mrs. Carew tells me," he said, after a moment or two of silence.
"Has she?" said Margaret, this time raising her eyes. "I should have gone down to East Angels before this if I had not feared that I should be only in the way; all their friends have been there, I know; it is a very united little society."
"Yes, Madam Ruiz and Madam Giron were there yesterday taking care of her; Mrs. Kirby and Mrs. Carew are there to-day. Everything possible is being done, of course. Still—I don't know; from something Mrs. Carew said, I fear the poor woman is suffering mentally as well as physically; she is constantly asking for Garda, cannot bear her out of her sight."
"If I thought I could be of any service," said Margaret.