"If it takes the last penny we have in the world," said his wife, with grave dignity, "no one shall leave our house hungry. You must step over to the store, Mr. Dlimm, and buy enough to satisfy every one."
"I feel just as you do, my dear," he said, with the air of one who sees duty clearly, though it is far from being agree-able. "Just give me our poor little hoard from your bureau drawer, and I'll go at once."
Lottie witnessed the scene with mingled amusement and indignation, and then, her face aglow with a sudden put pose, sped away also.
CHAPTER X
HUMAN NATURE.
The dismal tidings from the lower regions, that the larder had been stripped and that scarcely even a pie remained, soon became an open secret, about which every one was whispering and commenting. The supperless wore a defrauded and injured air. The eyes of many who had not left so important a duty to the uncertainties of the future, but, like Auntie Lammer, had availed themselves of the first opportunity, now twinkled shrewdly and complacently. They had the comfortable consciousness of taking care of themselves. But the greater number were honestly indignant and ashamed that such a thing should have happened. This feeling of mortification was increased when the committee reported but a small sum of money handed in as yet. The majority were provoked at others, and a few at themselves, for having brought so little. As the situation became clearer, all began to act characteristically, some preparing to slink away and escape a disagreeable state of things, and others putting their heads together in the wish to remedy matters. Some giggled, and others looked solemn. Some tried to appear resigned, as if it were a dispensation of Providence, and others snarled about "them mean Joneses and Rhamms."
Lottie hastily summoned her party together, and told them of the dire emergency, as Mrs. Gubling had stated it.
"Now," said she, "if you gentlemen have got any wit worth the name, you must hit on some way of helping the parson out of his scrape, for I have taken a great interest in him, or rather his wife. She is the queerest little woman I ever saw. I shouldn't wonder if she were an angel in disguise."
"As you are undisguised," whispered De Forrest
"O, be still, Julian. That compliment is as delicate as Auntie Lammer's appetite. But see, some of these mean 'locusts of Egypt,' after eating their minister out of house and home, are preparing to go. We must get a collection before a soul leaves the house. Julian, you lock the back door, and, Mr. Hemstead, you stand by the front door; and now, Mr. Harcourt, you are a lawyer, and know how to talk sharply to people: you give these cormorants to understand what we expect them to do before they leave."