“I expect she is what she is in consequence of the Craighelbyl training. That is the place in which good characters are made.”
“It is one of the places; and our High Seathorpe is another.”
“How is your enterprise there going to answer, really?”
“It will do much good to many young women, but it cannot do all. The girls who are sent are young, but they are not young enough. It is already too late to do all that we wish. The time to influence girls is before they become engaged. I should like to hand over the engaged girls to Miss Wentworth and Drom, with the other valuable assistants whom we have, and myself to form a home for neglected girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen; for that is the important age.”
“Yes, it is; but, you know, Margaret, that girls as well as boys are to be kept at the ordinary and the technical school now until they are fourteen. And they are no longer to be trusted to anybody who likes to take up the teaching profession for a livelihood; some of the best, and ablest, and highest people of the land are undertaking the work of the upper standards in the schools.”
“Yes; I do not forget that, and I am most thankful for it. In a few years such a place as that at High Seathorpe will surely not be required. In the meantime, it is needed very greatly, only the worst of it is that those who need it most will not come to share its advantages.”
“I wish they could be compelled. But I do not myself think so highly of these big Homes, as they are called; they are very different from real homes, you know, Margaret. If I ever have a home of my own—which I suppose I never shall have—I should like to keep two rooms for the use of poor little girls who have come to the turning-point in their lives, and need a friend.”
“Yes, I should like that, too,” said Margaret.
“Very well,” rejoined Tom, “you can have the privilege at once. There are several unused rooms in the Manor House.”
It was late at night before Mr. Whitwell reached home.