There was a gay laugh at this, and the lady was called a perfect and cruel mimic.
“‘Aththithtanth aththithtth!’” said two or three to their neighbors, and laughed again.
“What did your sister say to that?” asked the banker, bending forward his white, tonsured head, and smiling down the board.
“She said she didn’t care; that it kept her own heart tender, anyhow. ‘My dear madam,’ said he, ‘your heart wants strengthening more than softening.’ He told her a pound of inner resource was more true help to any poor person than a ton of assistance.”
The banker commended the rector. The hostess, very sweetly, offered her guarantee that Jane took the rebuke in good part.
“She did,” replied the time-honored beauty; “she tried to profit by it. But husband, here, has offered her a wager of a bonnet against a hat that the rector will upset her new schemes. Her idea now is to make work for those whom nobody will employ.”
“Jane,” said the kind-faced host, “really wants to do good for its own sake.”
“I think she’s even a little Romish in her notions,” said Jane’s wiry brother-in-law. “I talked to her as plainly as the rector. I told her, ‘Jane, my dear, all this making of work for the helpless poor is not worth one-fiftieth part of the same amount of effort spent in teaching and training those same poor to make their labor intrinsically marketable.’”
“Yes,” said the hostess; “but while we are philosophizing and offering advice so wisely, Jane is at work—doing the best she knows how. We can’t claim the honor even of making her mistakes.”
“’Tisn’t a question of honors to us, madam,” said Dr. Sevier; “it’s a question of results to the poor.”