“Read me the letter,” he said.
Eve opened the missive again, and looked at it.
“She puts it very nicely,” she said. “She asks if you will permit me to accept a dress allowance from a rich woman who does not always spend her money discreetly.”
It must be admitted that Mrs. Harrington’s nice way of putting it lost nothing by its transmission through Eve’s lips.
Thus poor Charity creeps in wherever she can shelter. She is not proud. She does not ask to be accepted for her own sake; though Heaven knows she frequently is. She masquerades in any costume - she accepts the humiliation of any disguise. She is ready to be cast down before swine, or raised high before the eyes of fools. She is used as a tool or a stepping-stone--the humble handmaid of the tuft-hunter and the toady. She is dragged through the mire of the slums to the dwellings of the wealthy and idle. She is hounded up and down the world--the plaything of Fashion, the trap of the unwary, the washerwoman of the unclean who wish to try the paths of virtue--for a change. And she is still Charity, and she lives strong and pure in herself. It has been decreed that we shall ever have the poor beside us, and so long shall we also possess those who live on them.
Charity begetteth charity, and it was for Charity’s sake that Eve Challoner took the bitter bread to herself, and accepted Mrs. Harrington’s offer.
Her own pride lay between her and this woman whom she knew to be capricious, uncertain, lacking the quality of justice. Her duty towards Captain Bontnor lay between her and high Heaven.
So Eve Challoner learnt her first lesson in that school where we all are called to study sooner or later--the school of Adversity; where some of us pass creditably, whilst others are ploughed, and a few--a very few--take honours.