Hazel drew a protesting breath. 'There is nothing shabby or worn- out about it! It is entirely new,spick and span. Please, is my next lesson to go deeper than Prim's trunk, and take off all the globe buttons?'
'For people who have no gloves, Hazel?'
Hazel looked startled for a minute, but then she looked incredulous.
'Go and find out all about it,' she said; 'and then we shall know what to do. I am talking of clergymen's wives.'
Dane left that point uncombated. The next evening he came in with his hands full of pamphlets. And after dinner, when the room was clear, and the gas burners lighted up the warm, luxurious comfort and seclusion, glowing and rich, around them, Dane took his papers and sat down by Wych Hazel's side.
'I have found out several things about your clergymen's wives,' he began. 'Here, as you see, is a bundle of Reports. They concern certain funds of relief, established in various churches, for the help of disabled or superannuated ministers and their families. And, without going into details,there are hundreds of such cases. Some of them are sick and old ministers, worn out in the service; others are widows of such men; others again, orphan families, whose mother and father are both gone. I have been told of the sort of destitution that is found among them. What do you think of a delicate child, for whom a bit of flannel could not be afforded? What do you think of a family of women and girls getting their own firing out of the woods, cutting it and backing it home, and that by the year together? What do you think of an old minister supported by the handiwork of an infirm and herself not young daughter? And I could tell you of living without books, without paper for writing, in want of calico for dresses, and muslin for underclothing, without pocket-handkerchiefs, without yarn to knit stockings or a penny to buy any, living on the coarsest food And I am talking of clergymen's wives, Hazel.'
Hazel looked up at him with wide-open eyes while he spoke, then down at herself, taking a sort of inventory of her own belongings. What stores of embroidery and lace were there, even hidden away and out of sight! And what sort of relation did these costly silken folds bear to those needed calicoes? Her note-paper was monogrammed and edged to double its first cost;that shawl, tossed carelessly on a chair, would have clothed in flannel a whole hospital of sick children. Point by point she went over it all past the thirty dollar buckle at her belt down toI dare not say how many dollars' worth of shoes that covered the little feet.
And these people were life-long workers for goodor children of such men and women, who had hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus,and she, an idler all her life! Hazel put her head down in her hands, and answered not a word.
Dane waited awhile; then he ventured a gentle query.
'I cannot bear myself!' Hazel broke out. 'I feel as if I had been stealing, and defrauding, and embezzling, and every other dishonest word in the dictionary! O do you think the cry of such labourers has been going up against me, all my life?'