"I mean the moral surroundings." Then, at my pause, "I mean, are you yourself a Christian woman?"
This was no Major Lobley. It is certain that she cared not a pin whether I was "saved." She merely had it in mind to do her duty by her flock. It was her duty to see that the poor, whose condition was to be improved, were placed in Christian homes.
Being perhaps the better satisfied on this point, for a rather faltering answer on my part, she sent a mild-eyed assistant for "Mamie Faffelfinger."
She meanwhile explained in a businesslike way that Mamie was a Catholic, brought up in an orphan asylum; her child was not a year old; "the man"—(so the matron designated him curtly)—was not her husband.
"You mean she would wish a home for the child too?"
The full-eyed woman ceased turning her pencil between her thumb and fingers on the desk and gave me an aggressive look.
"Certainly. Most of these people haven't a crust to live on. If you do not wish to employ that kind, there are the employment bureaus."
So they dawned on me like a blessing. These were not parvenu poor who had been to school in Paris, who would insist on unsubstantial desserts. Here were no head-dressy old fairies of questionable powers; these were no exotic fruits of the "gardens of Proserpine"; here was the good salt brine, here the ancient tides of reality—"the surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
Meanwhile the matron was speaking:—
"The man is not her husband. But if you are a Christian, I am sure you have no narrow scruples as to that. He drinks. She is half-starved. I have told her we will get her and the child a place, if she will promise to leave him." She glanced at the open doorway of her tiny office: "Yes, Mamie, come in."