"Just a little—twenty or thirty dollars—will do a great deal for these poor people. And then, if Sarah learns to work on a machine, you know, and she and her mother get better pay and better work, they will be able to take care of themselves for ever after."
"That's good sense," said David. "But just think of all that row of tenement houses."
"David," said Matilda solemnly, "don't you think it is wrong?"
"What?"
"That people should be so poor, and live in such places?"
"I suppose it is people's own fault, a good deal."
"But no, very often it isn't. Now Mrs. Staples used to be a great deal better oil; but her husband died, and she got sick, and so she came down to this."
"But where is the wrong, then?" said David.
"Why, just think how much money there is, and what it might do if people tried. Suppose everybody did all he could, David? Suppose every one did all he could?"
"As you are doing. But then where should we stop?"