“Now you are oppressing the rich,” said Mr. Morehall, promptly.
“Heaven forbid,” said the girl, wearily. “Equal rights for all—”
“The poor have a good friend in you,” he said, with reluctant admiration.
“Will you have our street watered, sir?” asked Berty, rising.
“I’ll try to. I’ll have to ask for an appropriation. We’ll want another cart and horse, and an extra man.”
“That means delay,” said Berty, despairingly, “and in the meantime the dust blows about in clouds. It enters the windows and settles on the tables and chairs. It chokes the lungs of consumptives struggling for breath, and little babies gasping for air. Then the mothers put the windows down, and they breathe over and over again the polluted air. And this is stifling autumn weather—come spend a day in River Street, sir.”
“Miss Gravely,” said the man, with a certain frank bluntness and good-will, “excuse my plain speaking, but you enthuse too much. Those poor people aren’t made of the same stuff that you are. They don’t suffer to the extent that you do under the same conditions.”
Berty was about to leave the room, but she turned round on him with flashing eyes. “Do you mean to say that God has created two sets of creatures—one set with fine nerves and sensitive bodies, the other callous and unsensitive to comfort or discomfort?”
“That’s about the measure of it.”