‘I wish we were all in heaven,’ growled
Uncle Max,—but his tone was a little husky,—’for
this world is a most uncomfortable place for good
people, or people with a craze. I think Charlie
is well out of it.’
‘Under which category do you mean to place me?’
I asked, trying to laugh.
’My dear, there is a craze in most women.
They have such an obstinate faith in their own good
intentions. If they find half a dozen fools to
believe in them, they will start a crusade to found
a new Utopia. Women are the most meddlesome things
in creation: they never let well alone.
Their pretty little fingers are in every human pie.
That is why we get so much unwholesome crust and so
little meat, and, of course, our digestion is ruined.’
‘Uncle Max—’ But he would not
be serious any longer.
’Ursula, I utterly refuse to inhale any more
of this mist. I think a comfortable arm-chair
by the fire would be far more conducive to comfort.
You have given me plenty of food for thought, and I
mean to sleep on it. Now, not another word.
I am going to ring the bell.’ And Uncle
Max was as good as his word.
BEHIND THE BARS
It was quite true, as I had told Uncle Max, that the
scheme had been no new one; it was no sudden emanation
from a girl’s brain, morbid with discontent
and fruitless longings; it had grown with my youth
and had become part of my environment. As a child
the thought had come to me as I followed my father
into one cottage after another in his house-to-house
visitation. He had been a conscientious, hard-working
clergyman; in fact, his work killed him, for he overtasked
a constitution that was not naturally strong.
I accompanied my mother, too, in her errands of mercy,
and saw a great deal of the misery engendered by drink,
ignorance, and want of forethought. In the case
of the sick poor, the gross mismanagement and want
of cleanly and thrifty habits led to an amount of
discomfort and suffering that even now makes me shudder.
The parish was overgrown and insufficiently worked;
the greater part of the population belonged to the
working-classes; dissenting chapels and gin-palaces
flourished. Often did my childish heart ache at
the surroundings of some squalid home, where the parents
toiled all day for worse than naught, just to satisfy
their unhealthy cravings, while the children grew
up riotous, half starved, and full of inherited vices.
There was a little child I saw once, a cripple, dying
slowly of some sad spinal disease, lying in a dark
corner, on what seemed to me a heap of rags.
Oh, God, I can see that child’s face now!
I remember when we heard of its death my mother burst
into tears. They were tears of joy, she told
me afterwards, that another suffering child’s
life was ended; ’and there are hundreds and
hundreds of these little creatures, Ursula,’
she said, ’growing up in sin and misery; and
the world goes on, and people eat and drink and are
merry, for it is none of their business, and yet it
is not the will of the Father that one of these little
ones should perish.’
