"Have you reckoned it up? Fifty or sixty half-pounds of tea, fifty or sixty pounds of sugar,—why, the sugar alone would be five or six dollars; and the tobacco, and the carriage hire; and I don't know what beside. All for nothing. That woman does not know what to do with money."
"But is it not something, to make so many poor people happy, if even only for a little while?"
"It would be a great deal better to give them something to do them good; a flannel petticoat, now, or a pair of warm socks. That would last. Or putting the money in the funds of the Institution, where it would go to their daily needs. I always think of that."
"Would it go to their daily needs? Some ladies got a cow for them once; and it just gave the matron cream for her tea, and they got no good of it."
"I don't believe that at all!" exclaimed Mrs. Busby. "I know the matron; Mrs. Bothers; I know her, for I recommended her myself. I have no idea she would be guilty of any such impropriety. It is just the gossip in the house, that Mrs. Mowbray has taken up in her haste and swallowed."
Rotha tried to hold her tongue. It was hard.
"Did Mrs. Mowbray give you anything Christmas?" Antoinette asked, pushing her inquiries. Rotha hesitated, but could find no way to answer without admitting the affirmative.
"What?" was the immediate next question; and even Mrs. Busby looked with ill-pleased eyes to hear Rotha's next words. It seemed like making her precious things common, to tell of them to these unkind ears. Yet there was no help for it.
"She gave me a travelling hand-bag."
"What sort?"