A Philanthropist | Page 3

to do it that way. Give
'em some-thin' an' let 'em go, I say!"
It was precisely his own view--but how fundamentally immoral the
position was he knew so well! He recalled Miss Gould's lectures on the
subject, miracles of eloquence and irrefutably correct in deductions that
interested him not nearly so much as the lecturer.
"So firm, so positive, so wholesome!" he would murmur to himself in
tacit apology for the instructive hours spent before their common
ground, the great fireplace in the central hall. He never sat there
without remembering their first interview: her resentment at an
absolutely inexcusable intrusion slowly melting before his exquisite
appreciation of every line and corner of the old colonial homestead; her
reserve waning at every touch of his irresistible courtesy, till, to her
own open amazement, she rose to conduct this connoisseur in
antiquities through the rooms whose delights he had perfectly foreseen,
he assured her, from the modelling of the front porch; her utter and
instantaneous refusal to consider for a second his proposal to lodge a
stranger in half of her father's house; and the naïve and conscientious
struggle with her principles when, with a logic none the less forcible
because it was so gracefully developed, he convinced her that her plain
duty lay along the lines of his choice.
For as a philanthropist what could she do? Here were placed in her
hands means she could not in conscience overlook. Rapidly translating
his dollars into converts, he juggled them before her dazzled eyes; he
even hinted delicately at Duty, with that exact conception of the
requirements of the stern daughter felt by none so keenly as those who
systematically avoid her.
His good genius prompted him to refer casually to soup-kitchens. Now
soup-kitchens were the delight of Miss Gould's heart; toward the
establishment of a soup-kitchen she had looked since the day when her
father's death had left her the double legacy of his worldly goods and
his unworldly philanthropy.

Visions of dozens of Bacchic revellers, riotous no more, but seated
temperately each before his steaming bowl, rose to her delighted eyes;
she saw in fancy the daughters and nieces of the reformed in smiles and
white aprons ladling the nutritious and attractive compound, earning
thus an honest wage; she saw a neatly balanced account-book and a
triumphant report; she saw herself the respected and deprecatory idol of
a millennial village. She wavered, hesitated, and was lost.
That very evening saw the establishment of a second ménage in the
north side of the house, and though a swift regret chilled her manner for
weeks, she found herself little by little growing interested in her lodger,
and conscious of an increasing desire to benefit him, an irritated
longing to influence him for good, to turn him from the butterfly whims
of a pretended invalid to an appreciation of the responsibilities of life.
For in all her well-ordered forty years Miss Gould had never seen so
indolent, so capricious, so irresponsible a person. That a man of easy
means, fine education, sufficient health, and gray hair should have
nothing better to do than collect willow-ware and fire-irons, read the
magazines, play the piano, and stroll about in the sun seemed to her
nothing less than horrible.
Each day that added some new treasure to his perfectly arranged rooms,
and in consequence some new song to his seductive repertoire, left a
new sting in her soul. She had been influencing somebody or
something all her life. She had been educating and directing and
benefiting till she was forced to be grateful to that providential
generosity that caused new wickedness and ignorance to spring
constantly from this very soil she had cleared; for if one reform had
been sufficient she would long since have been obliged to leave the
little village for larger fields. She had ministered to the starved mind as
to the stunted body; the idle and dissolute quaked before her. And yet
here in her own household, across her hall, lived the epitome of
uselessness, indolence, selfishness, and--she was forced to admit
it--charm. What corresponded to a sense of humor in her caught at the
discrepancy and worried over it.
What! was she not competent, then, to influence her equals? For in

everything but moral stamina she was forced to admit that her lodger
was her equal, if no more. Widely travelled, well read, well born,
talented, handsome, deferential--but persistently amused at her,
irrevocably indolent, hopelessly selfish.
With the firm intention of turning the occasions to his benefit, she had
finally accepted his regular and courteous invitation to take tea with
him, and had watched his graceful management of samovar and tea-cup
with open disfavor. "A habit picked up in England," he had assured her,
when, with the frankness characteristic of her,