“I suppose,” said the doctor musingly, “that the same conditions of sojourn and disoccupation would produce the same social effects anywhere. Then you must feel quite at home in South Hatboro'!”
“Quite! It's what I came back to avoid. I was sick of the life over there, and I wanted to be of some use here, instead of wasting all my days.”
She stopped, resolved not to go on if he took this lightly, but the doctor answered her with sufficient gravity: “Well?”
“It seemed to me that if I could be of any use in the world anywhere, I could in the place where I was born, and where my whole childhood was spent. I've been at home a month now, the most useless person in Hatboro'. I did catch at the first thing that offered—at Mr. Brandreth and his ridiculous Social Union and theatricals, and brought all this trouble on myself. I talked to Mr. Peck about them. You know what his views are?”
“Only from Putney's talk,” said the doctor.
“He didn't merely disapprove of the dance and supper, but he had some very peculiar notions about the relations of the different classes in general,” said Annie; and this was the point she had meant circuitously to lead up to when she began to speak of South Hatboro', though she theoretically despised all sorts of feminine indirectness.
“Yes?” said the doctor. “What notions?”
“Well, he thinks that if you have money, you can't do good with it.”
“That's rather odd,” said Dr. Morrell.
“I don't state it quite fairly. He meant that you can't make any kindness with it between yourself and the—the poor.”