“Yes; and we always like to fancy something pathetic in the fate of pretty girls that other fellows marry. I notice that we don't sorrow much over the plain ones. How's the divine Clara?”
“I believe she's well,” said Atherton. “I haven't seen her, all summer. She's been at Beverley.”
“Why, I should have supposed she would have come up and surf-bathed those indigent children with her own hand. She's equal to it. What made her falter in well-doing?”
“I don't know that we can properly call it faltering. There was a deficit in the appropriation necessary, and she made it up herself. After that, she consulted me seriously as to whether she ought not to stay in town and superintend the execution of the plan. But I told her she might fitly delegate that. She was all the more anxious to perform her whole duty, because she confessed that indigent children were personally unpleasant to her.”
Halleck burst out laughing. “That's like Clara! How charming women are! They're charming even in their goodness! I wonder the novelists don't take a hint from that fact, and stop giving us those scaly heroines they've been running lately. Why, a real woman can make righteousness delicious and virtue piquant. I like them for that!”
“Do you?” asked Atherton, laughing in his turn at the single-minded confession. He was some years older than his friend.
They had got down to Charles Street, and Halleck took out his watch at the corner lamp. “It isn't at all late yet,—only half-past eight. The days are getting shorter.”
“Well?”
“Suppose we go and call on Hubbard now? He's right up here on Clover Street!”
“I don't know,” said Atherton. “It would do for you; you're an old friend. But for me,—wouldn't it be rather unceremonious?”