“It was funny how she found a case so suddenly,” said Miriam drawing herself upright, careless, like a tree in the wind. She had already forgotten she would always feel like that, her bearing altered forever, held up by him, like a tree in the wind, everyone powerless to embarrass her. Poor Mrs. Bailey. …
“You see I feel I drove her to it, in a way.”
Mrs. Bailey listened smiling keenly.
“Yes you see ” pursued Miriam cheerfully, “I told her she would be all right for a week. I blamed you for that, said you were flourishing and she could pay when her ship came home.”
“That’s what you told her eh?”
“Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I knew I couldn’t manage more than a week, I advised her to apply to the C.O.S. She said she would and seemed delighted and when I asked her about it later she cried and said she hadn’t been. I said she must do something and then suddenly this case appeared. Where I don’t know.”
“I don’t blame her for not wanting to go there .”
“Why?”
“My word. I’d as soon go straight to the parish.”
“Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help the helpless you will not flaunt your name in subscription lists but hand your money over to the C.O.S. They are the only charitable organization that does not pauperise.”
“Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don’t deny. But if he’d ever been in difficulties he might change them. Insulting , that’s