“It almost brought the tears to my eyes, Ruby, for he did look so grand and noble, and it was so pathetic to think of a man of his powers forced to humble himself before a girl like me. He said that for years this shadow of debt had been over him, making life a purgatory for him, which is true enough. I hear that he has long been borrowing from every one of his own and his wife’s relatives, and has mortgaged everything they own, even her jewels. One wonders what he can be made of to have endured such shame and yet to have counted it less shame than to live in a small, economical way within his income. But he spoke of his debts with all the ingenuousness of a child, just as though they were an affliction sent by Providence, for which he was in no wise responsible, and I really think that he felt them so.
“‘My first condition,’ I said, ‘is that you shall give me a full and accurate statement of your financial affairs, including old debts which are not pressing, insurance, mortgages, and everything of a money nature.’
“Secondly, I asked that none of his children should receive private lessons in dancing, French, or anything else, which were not paid for in full in advance. I could see that this was a very bitter thing for the General. One of his daughters is a girl of artistic talent, and he has been giving her expensive lessons in painting, for which, as I knew, he has never paid.
“I asked General Lawrence pretty pointedly,” continued Mildred, “if, so long as a fair education could be had in our schools without cost, he felt justified in taking other people’s money to give his children accomplishments.”
“And pray what did he say to that?” I inquired.
“Why, nothing,” answered Mildred. “He looked absolutely dazed, as if it were a totally new idea. In fact, I do not think that it had occurred to him that children could be brought up respectably without knowing French and dancing.
“I wanted to tell him,” said Mildred, “that I counted the best part of my education to be the years that I spent studying geography and arithmetic with both boys and girls, with white and black, with rich and poor, with Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, in a public school, where success was gauged by individual merit alone, and where we little bigots and partisans learned to be tolerant and respectful toward one another. One of the most salutary things I ever learned was that the son of a ragpicker, in my class, was a better mathematician than I, and that a mulatto girl across the aisle usually outranked me.
“I told General Lawrence it was my firm conviction that his children would be far more benefited by a few years’ study of ordinary English branches with ordinary children than by anything else he could do for them educationally, for I feared that they were growing up to know only one side of life and only one class of people, and their knowledge and sympathies would be narrow. He nodded assent, and I went on.
“My third condition was, that he and his wife should sign a paper promising for the next three years to allow no debts to any one but me, or some agent authorized by me, to run beyond a month’s time. Any failure to meet such debts promptly must be immediately reported to me for settlement, for which I should take a mortgage on his furniture and personal effects.
“I told him that my intention was not merely to help his immediate and pressing need, but to entirely free him from debt. Nevertheless, I was unwilling to undertake this, unless he were ready to rigidly insist upon living within his income, thus teaching his children some lessons of self-sacrifice and thrift. I told him plainly that I was sure a little different management would reduce his doctor’s bills, for I had reason to think that his children’s constant ailing was due to the foolish way in which they had been indulged. He looked amazed and annoyed at this, and begged me to specify.