“Bless her dear heart!  She won’t think so when she has a literary husband, and a dozen little professors and professorins to support.  We won’t interfere now, but watch our chance, and do them a good turn in spite of themselves.  I owe Jo for a part of my education, and she believes in people’s paying their honest debts, so I’ll get round her in that way.”

“How delightful it is to be able to help others, isn’t it?  That was always one of my dreams, to have the power of giving freely, and thanks to you, the dream has come true.”

“Ah, we’ll do quantities of good, won’t we?  There’s one sort of poverty that I particularly like to help.  Out-and-out beggars get taken care of, but poor gentle folks fare badly, because they won’t ask, and people don’t dare to offer charity.  Yet there are a thousand ways of helping them, if one only knows how to do it so delicately that it does not offend.  I must say, I like to serve a decayed gentleman better than a blarnerying beggar.  I suppose it’s wrong, but I do, though it is harder.”

“Because it takes a gentleman to do it,” added the other member of the domestic admiration society.

“Thank you, I’m afraid I don’t deserve that pretty compliment.  But I was going to say that while I was dawdling about abroad, I saw a good many talented young fellows making all sorts of sacrifices, and enduring real hardships, that they might realize their dreams.  Splendid fellows, some of them, working like heros, poor and friendless, but so full of courage, patience, and ambition that I was ashamed of myself, and longed to give them a right good lift.  Those are people whom it’s a satisfaction to help, for if they’ve got genius, it’s an honor to be allowed to serve them, and not let it be lost or delayed for want of fuel to keep the pot boiling.  If they haven’t, it’s a pleasure to comfort the poor souls, and keep them from despair when they find it out.”

“Yes, indeed, and there’s another class who can’t ask, and who suffer in silence.  I know something of it, for I belonged to it before you made a princess of me, as the king does the beggarmaid in the old story.  Ambitious girls have a hard time, Laurie, and often have to see youth, health, and precious opportunities go by, just for want of a little help at the right minute.  People have been very kind to me, and whenever I see girls struggling along, as we used to do, I want to put out my hand and help them, as I was helped.”

“And so you shall, like an angel as you are!” cried Laurie, resolving, with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution for the express benefit of young women with artistic tendencies.  “Rich people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their money accumulate for others to waste.  It’s not half so sensible to leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while alive, and enjoy making one’s fellow creatures happy with it.  We’ll have a good time ourselves, and add an extra relish to our own pleasure by giving other people a generous taste.  Will you be a little Dorcas, going about emptying a big basket of comforts, and filling it up with good deeds?”