"Come with me, Tiger." I started for the house. Tiger stood a moment uncertainly, and then trotted after me. Mrs. Blake's face was radiant when she opened the door in answer to my knock.
"You're a thousand times welcome back; and my! but you're needed."
"That is encouraging news. But, Mrs. Blake, won't you hide Tiger away somewhere? Thomas is afraid of him, and, I think, not without reason."
"I wish't Daniel 'd sell him; he frightens folks from the house," she said, with much discontent, driving Tiger unceremoniously into the back porch.
Thomas soon had the bundles laid on the kitchen table, and the carriage turned homewards, while I began unrolling the prints and flannels, frocks and pinafores, for the Mill Road pensioners. Mrs. Blake watched eagerly; but at last exclaimed:
"Dear me! it must a cost you a mint of money to get all these."
"About the price of one evening dress."
"I hope you got all the things, then, you needed for yourself."
"Yes, and more, I fear, than I really needed. But Mrs. Flaxman says we owe it to our position in society to dress becomingly; but the question to my mind is, how far it is necessary to go to pay that social debt? When I see a family like the Larkums, my conscience tells me I owe them a heavier debt than society."
"I can't understand why some people have no conscience, and other so much. It seems to me now you have just a little too much for one of your age."