“That shows how susceptible the deserving poor are. I don't find that a bowl of the most expensive and delicate roses in the centre of a dinner-table tempers the asperity of the conversation when it turns upon the absent. But perhaps it oughtn't to do so.”
“I don't know about that,” said Miss Vane; “but if you had an impulsive niece to supply with food for the imagination, you would be very glad of anything that seemed to combine practical piety and picturesque effect.”
“Oh, if you mean that,” began Sewell more soberly, and his wife leaned forward with an interest in the question which she had not felt while the mere joking went on.
“Yes. When Sibyl came in this morning with an imperative demand to be allowed to go off and do good with flowers in the homes of virtuous poverty, as well as the hospitals and prisons, I certainly felt as if there had been an interposition, if you will allow me to say so.”
Miss Vane still had her joking air, but a note of anxiety had crept into her voice.
“I don't think it will do the sick and poor any harm,” said Sewell, “and it may do Sibyl some good.” He smiled a little in adding: “It may afford her varied energies a little scope.”
Miss Vane shook her head, and some lines of age came into her face which had not shown themselves there before. “And you would advise letting her go into it?” she asked.
“By all means,” replied Sewell. “But if she's going to engage actively in the missionary work, I think you'd better go with her on her errands of mercy.”
“Oh, of course, she's going to do good in person. What she wants is the sensation of doing good—of seeing and hearing the results of her beneficence. She'd care very little about it if she didn't.”
“Oh, I don't know that you can say that,” replied Sewell in deprecation of this extreme view. “I don't believe,” he continued, “that she would object to doing good for its own sake.”