“But the act of parliament wouldn’t give us the money,” said his father.
“Of course I don’t really mean an act of parliament; that would be absurd. But the people might give up their Christmas dinners.”
“A great many will, no doubt. Many of those most in earnest are pretty nearly giving up their daily dinners. Those who are indifferent will go on feasting the same as ever. You can’t make a sacrifice obligatory.”
“It would be no sacrifice if you did,” said Nora, still thinking of her wedding clothes.
“I doubt whether sacrifices ever do any real good,” said Frederick F. Frew.
“Oh, Fred!” said Nora.
“We have rather high authority as to the benefit of self-denial,” said the parson.
“A man who can’t sacrifice himself must be selfish,” said Bobby; “and we are all agreed to hate selfish people.”
“And what about the widow’s mite?” said Mrs. Granger.
“That’s all very well, and you may knock me down with the Bible if you like, as you might do also if I talked about pre-Adamite formations. I believe every word of the Bible, but I do not believe that I understand it all thoroughly.”
“You might understand it better if you studied it more,” said the parson.
“Very likely. I won’t be so uncourteous as to say the same thing of my elders. But now about these sacrifices. You wouldn’t wish to keep people in distress that you might benefit yourself by releasing them?”
“But the people in distress are there,” said Nora.
“They oughtn’t to be there; and as your self-sacrifices, after all, are very insufficient to prevent distress, there certainly seems to be a question open whether some other mode should not be tried. Give me the country in which the humanitarian principle is so exercised that no one shall be degraded by the receipt of charity. It seems to me that you like poor people here in England that you may gratify yourselves by giving them, not as much to eat as they want, but just enough to keep their skins from falling off their bones. Charity may have its double blessing, but it may also have its double curse.”
“Not charity, Mr. Frew,” said Mrs. Granger.
“Look at your Lady Bountifuls.”
“Of course it depends on the heart,” continued the lady; “but charity, if it be charity—”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Frederic F. Frew interrupting her. “In Philadelphia, which in some matters is the best organised city I know—”
“I’m going down to the village,” said the parson jumping up. “Who is to come with me?” and he escaped out of the room before Frew had had an opportunity of saying a word further about Philadelphia.
“That’s the way with your uncle always,” said he, turning to Nora, almost in anger. “It certainly is the most conclusive argument I know—that of running away.”
“Mr. Granger meant it to be conclusive,” said the elder lady.
“But the pity is that it never convinces.”
“Mr. Granger probably had no desire of convincing.”
“Ah! Well, it does not signify,” said Frew. “When a man has a pulpit of his own, why should he trouble himself to argue in any place where counter arguments must be met and sustained?”
Nora was almost angry with her lover, whom she regarded as stronger and more clever than any of her uncle’s family, but tyrannical and sometimes overbearing in the use of his strength. One by one her aunt and cousin left the room, and she was left alone with him. He had taken up a newspaper as a refuge in his wrath, for in truth he did not like the manner in which his allusions to his own country were generally treated at the parsonage. There are Englishmen who think that every man differing with them is bound to bet with them on any point in dispute. “Then you decline to back your opinion,” such men say when the bet is refused. The feeling of an American is the same as to those who are unwilling to argue with him. He considers that every intelligent being is bound to argue whenever matter of argument is offered to him; nor can he understand that any subject may be too sacred for argument. Frederic F. Frew, on the present occasion, was as a dog from whose very mouth a bone had been taken. He had given one or two loud, open growls, and now sat with his newspaper, showing his teeth as far as the spirit of the thing went. And it was in this humour that Nora found herself called upon to attack him on the question of her own proposed charity. She knew well that he could bark, even at her, if things went wrong with him. “But then he never bites,” she said to herself. He had told her that she might come to her wedding in an old cloak if she pleased, but she had understood that there was nothing serious in this permission. Now, at this very moment, it was incumbent on her to open his eyes to the reality of her intention.
“Fred,” she said, “are you reading that newspaper because you are angry with me?”
“I am reading the newspaper because I want to know what there is in it.”
“You know all that now, just as well as it you had written it. Put it down, Sir!” And she put her hand on to the top of the sheet. “If we are to be married in three weeks’ time, I expect that you will be a little attentive to me now. You’ll read as many papers as you like after that, no doubt.”
“Upon my word, Nora, I think your uncle is the most unfair man I ever met in my life.”
“Perhaps he thinks the same of you, and that will make it equal.”
“He can’t think the same of me. I defy him to think that I’m unfair. There’s nothing so unfair as hitting a blow, and then running away when the time comes for receiving a
