“How you fly to extremes, sister!” said Tom, with a laugh, as he neatly cut the top off a fourth egg. “I combat your erroneous views, and straightway you charge me, by implication, with having no views at all! A remedy there surely is, but the wisest among us are not agreed as to what it is—chiefly, I think, because the remedy is not simple but extremely complex. It cannot be stated in a few words. It consists in the wise and prompt application of multiform means—”
“Brother,” interrupted Matty with a smile, “do you think I am to be turned from my quest after this great truth by the stringing together of words without meaning—at least words vague and incomprehensible?”
“By no means, Matty. I hope that nothing will ever turn you from your quest after the best method of helping the poor. But my words are not meant to be vague. By multiform means I would indicate legislation in numerous channels, and social effort in all its ramifications, besides the correction of many erroneous modes of thought—such, for instance, as the putting of the less before the greater—”
“Tom,” again interrupted Matty, “I think it is about time to go and put on my things.”
“Not so, sister dear,” said Tom impressively; “I intend that you shall hear me out. I think that you put the less before the greater when you talk of ‘giving’ to the poor instead of ‘considering’ the poor. The greater, you know, includes the less. Consideration includes judicious giving, and the teaching of Scripture is, not to give to, but to consider, the poor. Now you may be off and get ready—as quickly as you can, too, for it would never do to keep the poor waiting breakfast!”
With a light laugh and a vigorous step—the result of goodwill to mankind, good intentions, good feeding, and, generally, good circumstances—Matilda Westlake ran upstairs to her room at the top of the house to put on a charming little winter bonnet, a dear little cloak lined with thick fur, and everything else to match, while Tom busied himself in meditating on the particular passage of God’s Word which he hoped, by the Spirit’s influence, to bring home to the hearts of some of the poor that Christmas morning.
Half an hour after these two had gone forth to do battle with John Frost and Sons, Edward Westlake sauntered into the breakfast-room, his right hand in his pocket and his left twirling the end of an exceedingly juvenile moustache.
Turning his back to the fire he perused the morning paper and enjoyed himself thoroughly, while James re-arranged the table for another sumptuous meal.
Ned was by no means a bad fellow. On the contrary, his companions thought and called him a “jolly good fellow.” His father was a jolly, though a gouty old widower. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that there was no mother in the household that Ned smoked a meerschaum in the breakfast-room while he read the paper.
“Have my skates been sharpened?” he asked, looking over the top of the paper.