"Even if I had known that fact, mother, the girl would have been obliged to walk half a mile in the storm to find this one manager. What do you suppose Mrs. James would have done for her that was not in my power to perform?"
"She would have asked the child whereabouts she lived, and to-morrow she would have gone to hunt her up. If she found all as she had been told, which is not likely—these creatures don't give a right direction once in ten times—why, she would have brought the case before the board at their next meeting, and they would help them, if neither of her parents was a drinking character."
"God help the poor!" ejaculated Sarah, energetically. "God help the poor, if this is man's style of relieving his starving brother! Mother, do you think that hunger pinches any the less when the famished being is told that next week or next month may bring him one good meal? Will the promise of a bushel of coal or a blanket, to be given ten days hence, warm the limbs that are freezing to-night? Is present help for present need, then always unsafe, imprudent, insane?"
"That all sounds very fine, my dear." Mrs. Hunt grew cool as her daughter waxed warm. "But when you have seen as much of the world as I have you will understand how necessary it is to be careful about believing all that we hear. Another thing you must not forget, and that is that we are not able to give freely, no matter how much disposed we may be to do so. It's pretty hard for a generous person to say 'No,' but it can't be helped. People in our circumstances must learn this lesson." Mrs. Hunt sighed at thought of the curb put upon her benevolent desires by bitter necessity. "And, after all, very few—you've no idea how few—of these pretended sufferers are really in want."
This preluded a recital of sundry barefaced impositions and successful swindles practiced upon herself and acquaintances, to which Mr. Hunt subjoined certain of his personal experiences, all tending to establish the principle that in a vast majority of cases of seeming destitution the supplicant was an accomplished rogue and the giver of alms the victim of his own soft heart and a villain's wiles. Jeannie drank in every syllable, until her ideal beggar quite equalled the ogre who would have made a light supper off of Hop-o'-my-Thumb and brothers.
"You gave this match-girl no money, I hope?" said Mrs. Hunt, at length.
"I did not, madam. I had none to give her." Impelled by her straightforward sense of honesty that would not allow her to receive commendation for prudence she had not shown, she said, bravely: "But I lent her my umbrella upon her promise to return it to-morrow."
"Well!"
Mrs. Hunt dropped her hands in her lap, and stared in speechless dismay at her daughter. Even her husband felt it his duty to express his disapprobation.
"That was very unwise, my daughter. You will never see it again."