“Very well, supposing I were to let you give it all away to Mrs. Littlejohn, even if she were the most worthy and needy person that could be found in town, what then? It is all gone. You have nothing more to give. The next week a poor little girl who has no hat, and can’t go to Sunday-school, excites your sympathy, and you would be glad to give something toward buying her a hat—you have not a copper. You go to Monthly Concert, and want to drop something into the contribution box, but Mrs. Littlejohn has eaten up what you might have given. You want to do something for the poor freedmen, who are coming into our armies; you cannot do it, for you have nothing to give.”
“Well,” said Gypsy, with a ludicrous expression of conviction and discomfiture, “I suppose so; I didn’t think.”
“Didn’t think!—the old enemy, Gypsy. And now that I have pointed out the little mistakes you made this afternoon, I want to tell you, Gypsy, how pleased I am that you were so quick to feel sorry for the old woman, and so ready to be generous with your own money and help. I would rather have you fail a dozen times on the unselfish side, than to have you careless and heartless towards the people God has made poor, and in suffering——there! I have given you a long sermon. Do you think mother is always scolding?”
Mrs. Breynton drew her into her arms, and gave her one of those little soft kisses on the forehead, that Gypsy liked so much. “I will go down and see the old woman after supper,” she said, then.
“Couldn’t you go before?” suggested Gypsy. “She said she hadn’t had any dinner.”
“We can’t do things in too much of a hurry; not even our charities,” said Mrs. Breynton, smiling. “I have some work which I cannot leave now, and I have little doubt the woman had some dinner. The poor are almost always very kind neighbors to each other. I will be there early enough to take her some supper.”
So Gypsy was comforted for Mrs. Littlejohn.
It was nearly dark when Mrs. Breynton came up from the village, with her pleasant smile, and her little basket that half Yorkbury knew so well by sight, for the biscuit and the jellies, the blanc-mange, and the dried beef and the cookies, that it brought to so many sick-beds. Gypsy had been watching for her impatiently, and ran down to the gate to meet her.
“Well, did you find her?”
“Oh, yes.”