“Let me see, now,” she said. “Papa told me to make an appointment with you. When can you come?”
Cornish produced a minute engagement-book, and these two busy people put their heads together in the search for a disengaged moment. Not only in mind, but in face and manner, they slightly resembled each other, and might, by the keen-sighted, have been set down at once as cousins. Both were fair and slightly made, both were quick and clever. Both faced the world with an air of energetic intelligence that bespoke their intention of making a mark upon it. Both were liable to be checked in a moment of earnest endeavour by a sudden perception of the humorous, which liability rendered them somewhat superficial, and apt of it lightly from one thought to another.
“I wish I could remember the name of papa's new scheme,” said Joan, as she bade them good-bye. When they were in the cab she ran to the door. “I remember,” she cried. “I remember now. It is malgamite.”
CHAPTER III. BEGINNING AT HOME.
“Charity creates much of the misery it relieves, but it does
not relieve all the misery it creates.”
Charity, as all the world knows, should begin at an “at home.” Lord Ferriby knew as well as any that there are men, and perhaps even women, who will give largely in order that their names may appear largely and handsomely in the select subscription lists. He also knew that an invitation card in the present is as sure a bait as the promise of bliss hereafter. So Lady Ferriby announced by card (in an open envelope with a halfpenny stamp) that she should be “at home” to certain persons on a certain evening. And the good and the great flocked to Cambridge Terrace. The good and great are, one finds, a little mixed, from a social point of view.
There were present at Lady Ferriby's, for instance, a number of ministers, some cabinet, others dissenting. Here, a man leaning against the wall wore a blue ribbon across his shirt front. There, another, looking bigger and more self-confident, had no shirt front at all. His was the cheap distinction of unsuitable clothes.
“Ha! Miss Ferriby, glad to see you,” he said as he entered, holding out a hand which had the usual outward signs of industrial honesty.