“You are lodging with Mrs. Bolpus. As a stranger you cannot know her reputation. If I might without impertinence suggest it, perhaps it would be wise to find a less questionable landlady.”
“And yet,” mused the stranger, “she seemed poor and unhappy.”
“And so she should,” cut in the lady.
“Indeed I should have described her as a Poor Lost Thing.”
“I can see,” said the benefactress icily, taking the guinea out of her purse, “that you have misunderstood the objects of the Society. We assist only the deserving.” “In my Society,” said the man, sadly pocketing his coins, “we assist first the undeserving.”
“So I should imagine,” sneered her ladyship, “and what do you call it?”
“Oh,” said the stranger gently, turning away, “we call it the Society of the Rich Lost Things, for whom the way to the kingdom of heaven is through the eye of a needle.”
“I hope,” said her ladyship to the Earl, her husband, at dinner, “that you will arrange for Mrs. Bolpus to be evicted at once.”
“Evicted!” said the Earl; “but haven’t you heard the news? She died this morning.”