Part 85 (1/2)

'I am not a good woman.'

'Answer it _like_ a good woman, anyhow,' said Pitt, smiling. 'What should I do, properly, for such people as those I have brought to your notice? Apply the golden rule--the only one that _can_ give the measure of things. In their place, what would you wish--and have a right to wish--that some one should do for you? what may those who have nothing demand from those who have everything?'

'Why, they could demand all you have got!'

'Not justly. Cannot you set your imagination to work and answer me? I am not talking for nothing. Take my old Christian, near eighty, who sees a sunbeam for one hour in the twenty-four, when the sun s.h.i.+nes, and uses it to read her Bible. The rest of the twenty-four hours without even the company of a sunbeam. Imagine--what would you, in her place, wish for?'

'I should wish to die, I think.'

'It would be welcome to Mrs. Gregory, I do not doubt, though perhaps for a different reason. Still, you would not counsel suicide, or manslaughter. While you continued in life, what would you like?'

'Oh,' said Betty, with an emphatic utterance, 'I would like a place where I could breathe!'

'Better lodgings?'

'Fresh air. I would beg for air. Of all the horrors of such places, the worst seems to me the want of air fit to breathe.'

'Then you think she ought to have a better lodging, in a better quarter. She cannot pay for it. I can. Ought I to give it to her?'

Betty fidgeted, inwardly. The conditions of the cab did not allow of much external fidgeting.

'I do not know why you ask me this,' she said.

'No; but indulge me! I do not ask you without a purpose.'

'I am afraid of your purpose! Yes; if I must tell you, I should say, Oh, take me out of this! Let me see the sun whenever he can be seen in this rainy London; and let me have sweet air outside of my windows.

Then I would like somebody to look after me; to open my window in summer and make my fire in winter, and prepare nice meals for me. I would like good bread, and a cup of drinkable tea, and a little bit of b.u.t.ter on my bread. And clothes enough to keep clean; and then I would like to live to thank you!'

Betty had worked herself up to a point where she was very near a great burst of tears. She stopped with a choked sob in her throat, and looked out of the cab window. Pitt's voice was changed when he spoke.

'That is just what I thought.'

'And you have done it!'

'No; I am doing it. I could not at once find what I wanted. Now I have got it, I believe. Go on now, please, and tell me what ought to be done for the man in rheumatic fever.'

'The doctor would know better than I.'

'He cannot pay for a doctor.'

'But he ought to have one!'

'Yes, I thought so.'

'I see what you are coming to,' said Betty; 'but, Mr. Pitt, I can _not_ see that it is your duty to pay physician's bills for everybody that cannot afford it.'

'I am not talking of everybody. I am speaking of this Mr. Hutchins.'

'But there are plenty more, as badly off.'