“Why, Mrs. Flaxman, I thought that was one of your strongest characteristics.”

“Don’t ever say such a thing to me again, when if it had not been for a tender-hearted child, with the very poorest possible opinion of herself, we might have, amongst us, finished breaking that poor fellow’s heart.”

“You will make her vain if you continue praising her so much,” Mr. Winthrop remonstrated.

“She has not a natural tendency that way, and we have not helped to foster her vanity; if we have erred, it has been in the other direction.”

“Please let us cease talking personalities.  Why don’t you admire and talk about this lovely boy?  Wouldn’t you like to have us adopt him at Oaklands, Mr. Winthrop?”

“I expect you will not be quite satisfied until you get the position of matron in some huge asylum for widows and orphans, with a few widowers thrown in for variety.”

“I should enjoy such a position, I believe.  It never occurred to me before.  Only think!  Gathering up little bits of motherless humanity like this, and training them into noble men and women.  They would go on perpetuating my work long after my eyes were sleeping under the daisies.  Why that would be next thing to the immortality most of us long for.”

“Do you really think you would like such a career?”

“Yes, really.  If you would only help me to begin now, in a small way at first, and build a pretty cottage in one of the Glens around Oaklands.”

“Have you no higher ambition than to take care of children?”

“But what could be higher, at least within my reach?  I am not clever enough to write books—­at least not good ones, and there are too many fifth and sixth rate ones now in the market.  My painting and music won’t ever amount to anything more than my book-writing could do; so what remains for me but to try and make the world the better for having lived in it?  And the only way any of us can do that is to work for human beings.”

I was in such real earnest, I forgot for the time Mr. Winthrop’s possible sarcasm.

“You are not very moderate in your demands.  Possibly I would be permitted to share in the posthumous honors you mention, which would be some recompense for the outlay.  Of course, I would be called on to feed and clothe, as well as shelter, your motley crowd.”

“I forgot about that.  Would it cost very much?”

“The expense would depend largely on the numbers you received, and it might not be safe to trust to your discretion in limiting the number.  Your sympathies would be so wrought on, Oaklands would soon swarm with blear-eyed specimens of humanity, and Mrs. Flaxman and I would be compelled to seek some other shelter.”

“If I were only rich myself,” I said, with a hopeless sigh.

“You would very soon be poor,” Mrs. Flaxman interjected, turning to Mr. Winthrop.  “I could scarcely restrain her from buying one of the most expensive pieces of broadcloth for her blind friend.”