A Philanthropist, Page 2

at anabsolutely inexcusable intrusion slowly melting before his exquisiteappreciation of every line and corner of the old colonial homestead; herreserve waning at every touch of his irresistible courtesy, till, to herown open amazement, she rose to conduct this connoisseur in antiquitiesthrough the rooms whose delights he had perfectly foreseen, he assuredher, from the modelling of the front porch; her utter and instantaneousrefusal to consider for a second his proposal to lodge a stranger inhalf of her father's house; and the naive and conscientious strugglewith her principles when, with a logic none the less forcible becauseit was so gracefully developed, he convinced her that her plain duty layalong the lines of his choice.

  For as a philanthropist what could she do? Here were placed in her handsmeans she could not in conscience overlook. Rapidly translating hisdollars into converts, he juggled them before her dazzled eyes; heeven hinted delicately at Duty, with that exact conception of therequirements of the stern daughter felt by none so keenly as those whosystematically 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 theestablishment of a soup-kitchen she had looked since the day when herfather's death had left her the double legacy of his worldly goods andhis unworldly philanthropy.

  Visions of dozens of Bacchic revellers, riotous no more, but seatedtemperately each before his steaming bowl, rose to her delighted eyes;she saw in fancy the daughters and nieces of the reformed in smiles andwhite aprons ladling the nutritious and attractive compound, earningthus an honest wage; she saw a neatly balanced account-book and atriumphant report; she saw herself the respected and deprecatory idol ofa millennial village. She wavered, hesitated, and was lost.

  That very evening saw the establishment of a second menage in the northside of the house, and though a swift regret chilled her manner forweeks, she found herself little by little growing interested in herlodger, and conscious of an increasing desire to benefit him, anirritated longing to influence him for good, to turn him from thebutterfly whims of a pretended invalid to an appreciation of theresponsibilities of life.

  For in all her well-ordered forty years Miss Gould had never seen soindolent, so capricious, so irresponsible a person. That a man of easymeans, fine education, sufficient health, and gray hair should havenothing better to do than collect willow-ware and fire-irons, read themagazines, play the piano, and stroll about in the sun seemed to hernothing 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 newsting in her soul. She had been influencing somebody or something allher life. She had been educating and directing and benefiting till shewas forced to be grateful to that providential generosity that causednew wickedness and ignorance to spring constantly from this very soilshe had cleared; for if one reform had been sufficient she would longsince have been obliged to leave the little village for larger fields.She had ministered to the starved mind as to the stunted body; the idleand 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 correspondedto a sense of humor in her caught at the discrepancy and worried overit.

  What! was she not competent, then, to influence her equals? For ineverything but moral stamina she was forced to admit that her lodger washer equal, if no more. Widely travelled, well read, well born, talented,handsome, deferential--but persistently amused at her, irrevocablyindolent, hopelessly selfish.

  With the firm intention of turning the occasions to his benefit, she hadfinally accepted his regular and courteous invitation to take tea withhim, and had watched his graceful management of samovar and tea-cup withopen disfavor. "A habit picked up in England," he had assured her, when,with the frankness characteristic of her, she had criticised him for theeffeminacy. And his smiling explanation had sent a sudden flush acrossher smooth, firm cheeks. Was she provincial? Did she seem to him a NewEngland villager and nothing more? She bit her lip, and the appeal shehad planned went unspoken that day.

  But her desire could not rest, and as to her strict notions thecontinual visits from her side to his seemed unsuitable, she gave inself-defence her own invitation, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoonssaw her lodger across the hall drinking her own tea with wine andplum-cake by the shining kettle.

  If she could command his admiration in no other way, she felt, she mightsafely rely on his deferential respect for the owner of that pewtertea-service--velvety, shimmering, glistening dully, with shapes thatvaguely recalled Greek lamps and Etruscan urns. And she piled wedges ofambrosial plum-cake with yellow frosting on sprigged china, and set outwine in her great-grandfather's long-necked decanter, and, with whatshe considered a gracious tact, overlooked the flippancy of her guest'sdesultory conversation, and sincerely tried to discover the humorousquality in her conversation that forced a subdued chuckle now and thenfrom her listener.

  She confided most of her schemes to him, sometimes unconsciously, andgrew to depend more than she knew upon his common sense and experience;for, though openly cynical of her works, he would give her what sheoften realized to be the best of practical advice, and his amusinggeneralities, though to her mind insults to humanity, had been sobitterly proved true that she looked fearfully to see his lightestadverse prophecy fulfilled.

  After a cautious introduction of the subject by asking his advice asto the minimum of hours in the week one could conscientiously allow adoubtful member of the Weekly Culture Club to spend upon Browning, sheendeavored to get his idea of that poet. Her famous theory as toher ability to place any one satisfactorily in the scale of cultureaccording to his degree of appreciation of "Rabbi ben Ezra"was unfortunately known to her lodger before she could with anyverisimilitude produce the book, and he was wary of committing himself.The exquisite effrontery with which she finally brought out hergray-green volume was only equalled by the forbearing courtesy withwhich he welcomed both it and her. Nor did he offer any other comment onher opening the book at a well-worn page than an apologetic removal tothe only chair in the room more comfortable than the one he was at thetime occupying. He listened in silence to her intelligent if somewhatsonorous rendering of selected portions of "Saul," thanking her politelyat the close, and only stipulating that he should be allowed to returnthe favor by a reading from one of his own favorite poets. With ashocked remembrance of certain yellow-covered volumes she had oftencleared away from the piazza, Miss Gould inquired if the poet inquestion were English. On his hearty affirmative she resigned herselfwith no little interest to the opportunity of seeing her way moreclearly into this baffling mind, horrified at his criticism of thesecond reading--for she had brought the "Rabbi" forward at last,

  "Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!"

  she had intoned; and, fixing her eye sternly on the butterfly in whiteflannels, she had asked him with a telling emphasis what that meant tohim? With the sweetest smile in the world, he had leaned forward, sippedhis tea, gazed thoughtfully in the fire, and answered, with a politeapology for the homeliness of the illustration, that it reminded himmost strongly of a tack fixed in the seat of a chair, with the attendantcircumstances! After a convulsive effort to include in one terriblesentence all the scorn and regret and pity that she felt, Miss Gould haddecided that silence was best, and sat back wondering why she sufferedhim one instant in her parlor. He took from the floor beside him at thispoint a neat red volume, and, murmuring something about his inability todo the poet justice, he began to read. For one, two, four minutes MissGould sat staring; then she interrupted him coldly:

  "And who is the author of that doggerel, Mr. Welles?"

  "Edward Lear, dear Miss Gould--and a great man, too."

  "I think I might have been spared--" she began with such genuine angerthat any but her lodger would have quailed. He, however, merely smiled.
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br />   "But the subtlety of it--the immensity of the conception--the power ofcharacterization!" he cried. "Just see how quietly this is treated."

  And to her amazement she let him go on; so that a chance visitor,entering unannounced, might have been treated to the delicious spectacleof a charming middle-aged gentleman in white flannels reading, near abirch fire and a priceless pewter tea-service, to a handsome middle-agedwoman in black silk, the following pregnant lines:

  "There was an old person of Bow, Whom nobody happened to know, So they gave him some soap, And said coldly, 'We hope You will go back directly to Bow!'

  And the illustration is worthy of the text," he added enthusiastically,as he passed the volume to her.

  She had no sense of humor, but she had a sense of justice, and itoccurred to her that after all an agreement was an agreement. If tolisten