Carnegie kindly.
"Thank you, but I paid the demand as the least trouble and to have done
with it."
"Of course; I would pay half I am possessed of rather rather than go
before the commissioners," said Miss Buff. "Old Phipps is one of them;
and here he is. Come to see you, Bessie; you are having quite a levee. I
shall be off now." Miss Buff rose, and Miss Wort with her, but before
they went there were some rallying speeches to be exchanged between Miss
Buff and the quaint old bachelor. They were the most friendly of
antagonists, and their animosity was not skin-deep. "Have you seen Lady
Latimer since the last school committee, Mr. Phipps?" asked Miss Buff,
in mischievous allusion to their latest difference of opinion.
"No. I always keep as far as possible out of her ladyship's way."
"If you had her spirit of charity you would not avow it."
"You take the name of charity in vain. 'It is the beginning, the excuse,
and the pretext for a thousand usurpations.' Poverty has a new terror
now-a-days in the officiousness of women with nothing to do but play at
charity."
Miss Wort shook her head and shut her eyes, as if to stave off the shock
of this profanity. Miss Buff only laughed the more merrily, and declared
that Mr. Phipps himself had as much to answer for as anybody in
Beechhurst, if charity was a sin.
"I can charge myself with very few acts of charity," said he grimly. "I
am not out of bonds to bare justice.
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