“Cleaner milk for the streets, indeed!”
“Eh? What? Oh, yes, it was the milk for the babies, wasn’t it?” he teased. “Well, however that may be you’ll have to come back to superintend all those things you’ve been wanting to do so long. But”—his face grew a little wistful—“you don’t want to spend too much time here. You know—Chicago has a few babies that need cleaner milk.”
“Yes, I know, I know!” Her face grew softly luminous as it had grown earlier in the afternoon.
“So you can bestow some of your charity there; and—”
“It isn’t charity,” she interrupted with suddenly flashing eyes. “Oh, how I hate that word—the way it’s used, I mean. Of course, the real charity means love. Love, indeed! I suppose it was love that made John Daly give one hundred dollars to the Pension Fund Fair—after he’d jewed it out of those poor girls behind his counters! And Mrs. Morse went around everywhere telling how kind dear Mr. Daly was to give so much to charity! Charity! Nobody wants charity—except a few lazy rascals like those beggars of Flora’s! But we all want our rights. And if half the world gave the other half its rights there wouldn’t be any charity, I believe.”
“Dear, dear! What have we here? A rabid little Socialist?” Mr. Smith held up both hands in mock terror. “I shall be petitioning her for my bread and butter, yet!”
“Nonsense! But, honestly, Mr. Smith, when I think of all that money”—her eyes began to shine again—“and of what we can do with it, I—I just can’t believe it’s so!”
“But you aren’t expecting that twenty millions are going to right all the wrongs in the world, are you?” Mr. Smith’s eyes were quizzical.
“No, oh, no; but we can help some that we know about. But it isn’t that I just want to give, you know. We must get behind things—to the causes. We must—”
“We must make the Mr. Dalys pay more to their girls before they pay anything to pension funds, eh?” laughed Mr. Smith, as Miss Maggie came to a breathless pause.