Part 12 (2/2)

You might have wondered that the coachman did not dismount to help her; the fat horses certainly did not look as though they would play any tricks if he dropped the reins.

But when you looked at his immovable countenance and his correct iron-gray whiskers, you understood at once that this was a man who knew what he was doing, and never neglected a detail of his duty.

Mrs. Warden pa.s.sed through the little garden in front of the house, and entered the garden-room. The door to the adjoining room stood half open, and there she saw the lady of the house at a large table covered with rolls of light stuff and scattered numbers of the _Bazar_.

”Ah, you've come just at the right moment, my dear Emily!” cried Mrs.

Abel, ”I'm quite in despair over my dress-maker--she can't think of anything new. And here I'm sitting, ransacking the _Bazar_. Take off your shawl, dear, and come and help me; it's a walking-dress.”

”I'm afraid I'm scarcely the person to help you in a matter of dress,”

answered Mrs. Warden.

Good-natured Mrs. Abel stared at her; there was something disquieting in her tone, and she had a vast respect for her rich friend.

”You remember I told you the other day that Warden had promised me--that's to say”--Mrs. Warden corrected herself--”he had asked me to order a new silk dress--”

”From Madame Lab.i.+.c.he--of course!”--interrupted Mrs. Abel. ”And I suppose you're on your way to her now? Oh, take me with you! It will be such fun!”

”I am not going to Madame Lab.i.+.c.he's,” answered Mrs. Warden, almost solemnly.

”Good gracious, why not?” asked her friend, while her good-humored brown eyes grew spherical with astonishment.

”Well, you must know,” answered Mrs. Warden, ”it seems to me we can't with a good conscience pay so much money for unnecessary finery, when we know that on the outskirts of the town--and even at our very doors--there are hundreds of people living in dest.i.tution--literally in dest.i.tution.”

”Yes, but,” objected the advocate's wife, casting an uneasy glance over her table, ”isn't that the way of the world? We know that inequality--”

”We ought to be careful not to increase the inequality, but rather to do what we can to smooth it away,” Mrs. Warden interrupted. And it appeared to Mrs. Abel that her friend cast a glance of disapprobation over the table, the stuffs, and the _Bazars_.

”It's only alpaca,” she interjected, timidly.

”Good heavens, Caroline!” cried Mrs. Warden, ”pray don't think that I'm reproaching you. These things depend entirely upon one's individual point of view--every one must follow the dictates of his own conscience.”

The conversation continued for some time, and Mrs. Warden related that it was her intention to drive out to the very lowest of the suburbs, in order to a.s.sure herself, with her own eyes, of the conditions of life among the poor.

On the previous day she had read the annual report of a private charitable society of which her husband was a member. She had purposely refrained from applying to the police or the poor-law authorities for information. It was the very gist of her design personally to seek out poverty, to make herself familiar with it, and then to render a.s.sistance.

The ladies parted a little less effusively than usual. They were both in a serious frame of mind.

Mrs. Abel remained in the garden-room; she felt no inclination to set to work again at the walking-dress, although the stuff was really pretty.

She heard the m.u.f.fled sound of the carriage-wheels as they rolled off over the smooth roadway of the villa quarter.

”What a good heart Emily has,” she sighed.

Nothing could be more remote than envy from the good-natured lady's character; and yet--it was with a feeling akin to envy that she now followed the light carriage with her eyes. But whether it was her friend's good heart or her elegant equipage that she envied her it was not easy to say. She had given the coachman his orders, which he had received without moving a muscle; and as remonstrance was impossible to him, he drove deeper and deeper into the queerest streets in the poor quarter, with a countenance as though he were driving to a Court ball.

At last he received orders to stop, and indeed it was high time. For the street grew narrower and narrower, and it seemed as though the fat horses and the elegant carriage must at the very next moment have stuck fast, like a cork in the neck of a bottle.

<script>