Once I even saw a resident taking care of a neighbour’s baby while the mother went shopping. The young philanthropist told me, however, the next time I saw her, that she had resolved not to dissipate her energy in that way.
But nothing else edified me so much as the evening discussions on problems of the day. The young women were even more eager than the men at Barnet House to walk in step with great popular movements. Some of them were fairly well equipped for practical economic study. Others were collecting statistics with the most engaging ignorance.
Every week, a club devoted to the study of social science, the “William Morris League,” met at the Settlement. On these evenings the head of the House sat, Lady Abbess fashion, with nun and novice at her side.
And men and women from various trades-unions, cigar-makers, street-car drivers, cotton-spinners, garment-workers, a motley group, listened to a paper on (perhaps): “How to form Protective Unions among Under-Paid Women.”
For the deliverance of the working-woman was the hope that lay nearest the Settlement’s heart.
I always went away from these discussions with feelings of mingled pride and amusement. These were strong and earnest young women, inspired by no wish for notoriety, but eager to help and to understand.
Yet it was a queer world, where the maidens formed trades-unions, and young men were making tea!
It was very good tea.
CHAPTER XI
The only serene face among us was that of the Butterfly Hunter. The eyes of the Altruist were clouded by the wrath of denunciation; the Lad’s were full of unfulfilled desire; and my own, I knew, were troubled: they had been for so long a time a mirror for pictures of sorrow. Into Janet’s face crept more and more often the puzzled expression of those who mistake their own bad moods for philosophic thought.