ess of the Widows' Houses--and of a school
attached. I am thinking of a Charterhouse or a Christ's Hospital in a
small way; a foundation, that is, to include the old charity and a new and
efficient school; modern education worked on lines of the old collegiate
mediaeval systems--eh, Miss Marvin? To me, a high Tory, those old
foundations are still our best models."

"Three or four of them have survived," said Hester gravely, and with as
little of irony as she could contrive. "Forgive me, Sir George--once more
I am going to speak ungratefully--but though neglect be our chief curse
just now, a worse may follow when rich folks wake up and endow education
in a hurry."

"You condemn me offhand for a faddist?"

"If you would only see that these things need an apprenticeship!
Take this very combination of school and hospital. Three or four have
survived, and are lodged in picturesque buildings, where they keep
picturesque old customs, and seem to you very noble and venerable.
So indeed they are. But what of the hundreds that have perished?
And of these survivors can you tell me one in which either the school or
the alms-house has not gone to the wall? The school, we will say, grows
into an expensive one for the sons of rich men; the almshouse dwindles
from a college for poor gentlemen down to a home into which wealthy men
job their retired servants. I grant you that our modern attempts to
combine almsgiving with teaching are not much better as a rule--are,
perhaps, even a little worse. If you have ever walked through one of our
public orphanages, for instance--"

Sir George's face fell. "I have never visited one, Miss Marvin, and I
subscribe perhaps to half a dozen--out of sheer laziness, and because to
subscribe comes easier than to say 'No.' Yes; I am an incurable amateur,
and you are right, no doubt, in laughing at my scheme and refusing to look
at it."

"But I don't, Sir George. I even think it may succeed, as it deserves,
and reward your kindness. Yes, and I have been arguing against myself as
much as against you, to warn myself against hoping too much. For there
must be disappointments."

"What disappointments?"

"Well, to begin with, you rich folks are impatient; you expect your money
to buy success at once and of itself. And then you expect gratitude."

"I do not," Sir George asserted stoutly.

"At least," said Hester, "it is only too plain that you are not getting
it." She dropped him a small