“Yes you see” pursued Miriam cheerfully, “I told her she would be all right for a week. I blamed you for that, said you were flourishing and she could pay when her ship came home.”
“That’s what you told her eh?”
“Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I knew I couldn’t manage more than a week, I advised her to apply to the C.O.S. She said she would and seemed delighted and when I asked her about it later she cried and said she hadn’t been. I said she must do something and then suddenly this case appeared. Where I don’t know.”
“I don’t blame her for not wanting to go there.”
“Why?”
“My word. I’d as soon go straight to the parish.”
“Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help the helpless you will not flaunt your name in subscription lists but hand your money over to the C.O.S. They are the only charitable organization that does not pauperise.”
“Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don’t deny. But if he’d ever been in difficulties he might change them. Insulting, that’s my opinion. My word the questions they ask. You can’t call your soul your own.”
“I didn’t know that. That friend my sister brought here was being helped by them.”
“How is Miss Henderson?”