Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/849

Rh girl's conscience, after this almsgiving, was so great that she redoubled her efforts to secure other worthy objects of charity." With her, worthy objects of charity were those who looked the part. The more ragged and unkempt, the more worthy. Now the purveyor of phantom music had been ideal in this respect, but after that one day she never came back to the corner, and the Lady Bountiful after a time had visions of her retiring from the musical profession on that penny, and "living happily ever after."

The nine remaining pennies that constituted the fund for the amelioration of the sufferings of the poor, therefore, remained intact in their place of hiding, behind a picture on the wall of her room, where they bided their time securely wrapped in many folds of paper.

"Did he or did he not want a penny?"

The Lady Bountiful had been on the point of turning in to her own house when the old gentleman came down the street, leaning rather heavily on his cane. In appearance he did not nearly approach the old lady with the music-box. In point of worthiness she had been conspicuous as to costume. Now with the old gentleman matters were different. He was poor, there could be no doubt as to that; his clothes looked quite green in the sunlight. Still, sometimes old gentlemen wore shabby clothes who did not require pennies. She might ask him; but suppose he should refuse, how uncomfortable it would make her feel. She ran down the steps to get a better view of him as he came toward her. His head was sunken into his shoulders, and this, together with the downward sweep of the features, made her think of a solitary old eagle that sat on the topmost perch of his big cage in the Park. Another look, and she drew back hastily, for though he might be sad and lonesome like the old eagle, he was not an appealing old gentleman. And if he really did not want a penny he looked quite capable of rejecting it in an utterly terrifying manner. The Lady Bountiful looked after him as he toiled down the street. His back was bent, and he looked so genuinely forlorn that it seemed almost as if he must be worthy. Perhaps he would have no dinner if she did not give it him. But fear held her captive and the old gentleman went his way, leaving in his wake a little girl so harassed by timidity at doing what she thought was right, and fear as to her action's possible reception, that she could feel her heart choke in her throat as she ran after him, then turned back again, and finally sank down on the lowest step of her own house, wretched to the verge of tears.

The old gentleman went his way—and as he turned into Fifth Avenue several people craned their necks for a better look at him. The newspapers referred to him familiarly as "Uncle Dan'l," and he was perhaps the shrewdest financier in Wall Street.

As the Lady Bountiful ate her supper she was so beset with thoughts of the old gentleman going hungry to his bed that she left her bowl of bread and milk as a propitiatory offering to she knew not exactly what. If God were looking down and saw all things, as the bishop had said, then he would see that she had given up half her supper, and this, perhaps, in "some all-wise and omnipotent way," he would transfer to the old gentleman. Thereafter, the Lady Bountiful prayed nightly for strength to speak to the poor and ask them if they needed pennies. And at the same time she determined to run no risk of the worthy one's escape when once sighted. There must be no fatal loss of time in satisfying servants as to her reason for coming into the house. The fund, ready for immediate disbursement, must be in the hands of the almoner. Thus it came to pass that the treasure was taken out daily, nine round copper pennies that grew moist in the little hand that was so eager to help.

Two days later the Lady Bountiful again saw the old gentleman. He made his way down the street the same as before, head bent, eyes on the ground. But the Lady Bountiful scarce heeded these details, she was so rejoiced to know that he had not died of starvation owing to her late hesitation in offering the penny.

But as he came nearer she was again the victim of her own fears—how could she ask him if he wanted a penny? Maybe he was "poor but proud" like "Mark, the Match-boy," that she had just been reading about. She felt a hot wave sweep up and down her backbone as she