Though Miss Barfoot had something less than a woman’s average stature, the note of her presence was personal dignity. She was handsome, and her carriage occasionally betrayed a consciousness of the fact. According to circumstances, she bore herself as the lady of aristocratic tastes, as a genial woman of the world, or as a fervid prophetess of female emancipation, and each character was supported with a spontaneity, a good-natured confidence, which inspired liking and respect. A brilliant complexion and eyes that sparkled with habitual cheerfulness gave her the benefit of doubt when her age was in question; her style of dress, gracefully ornate, would have led a stranger to presume her a wedded lady of some distinction. Yet Mary Barfoot had known many troubles, poverty among them. Her experiences and struggles bore a close resemblance to those which Rhoda Nunn had gone through, and the time of trial had lasted longer. Mental and moral stamina would have assured her against such evils of celibacy as appeared in the elder Maddens, but it was to a change of worldly fortune that she owed this revival of youthful spirit and energy in middle life.
‘You and I must be friends,’ she said to Monica, holding the girl’s soft little hand. ‘We are both black but comely.’
The compliment to herself seemed the most natural thing in the world. Monica blushed with pleasure, and could not help laughing.
It was all but decided that Monica should become a pupil at the school in Great Portland Street. In a brief private conversation, Miss Barfoot offered to lend her the money that might be needful.
‘Nothing but a business transaction, Miss Madden. You can give me security; you will repay me at your convenience. If, in the end, this occupation doesn’t please you, you will at all events have regained health. It is clear to me that you mustn’t go on in that dreadful place you described to Miss Nunn.’
The visitors took their leave at about five o’clock.
‘Poor things! Poor things!’ sighed Miss Barfoot, when she was alone with her friend. ‘What can we possibly do for the older ones?’
‘They are excellent creatures,’ said Rhoda; ‘kind, innocent women; but useful for nothing except what they have done all their lives. The eldest can’t teach seriously, but she can keep young children out of mischief and give them a nice way of speaking. Her health is breaking down, you can see.’
‘Poor woman! One of the saddest types.’
‘Decidedly. Virginia isn’t quite so depressng — but how childish!’
‘They all strike me as childish. Monica is a dear little girl; it seemed a great absurdity to talk to her about business. Of course she must find a husband.’
‘I suppose so.’
Rhoda’s tone of slighting concession amused her companion.
‘My dear, after all we don’t desire the end of the race.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Rhoda admitted with a laugh.
‘A word of caution. Your zeal is eating you up. At this rate, you will hinder our purpose. We have no mission to prevent girls from marrying suitably — only to see that those who can’t shall have a means of living with some satisfaction.’
‘What chance is there that this girl will marry suitably?’
‘Oh, who knows? At all events, there will be more likelihood of it if she comes into our sphere.’
‘Really? Do you know any man that would dream of marrying her?’
‘Perhaps not, at present.’
It was clear that Miss Barfoot stood in some danger of becoming subordinate to her more vehement friend. Her little body, for all its natural dignity, put her at a disadvantage in the presence of Rhoda, who towered above her with rather imperious stateliness. Her suavity was no match for Rhoda’s vigorous abruptness. But the two were very fond of each other, and by this time thought themselves able safely to dispense with the forms at first imposed by their mutual relations.
‘If she marry at all,’ declared Miss Nunn, ‘she will marry badly. The family is branded. They belong to the class we know so well — with no social position, and unable to win an individual one. I must find a name for that ragged regiment.’
Miss Barfoot regarded her friend thoughtfully.
‘Rhoda, what comfort have you for the poor in spirit?’
‘None whatever, I’m afraid. My mission is not to them.’
After a pause, she added —
‘They have their religious faith, I suppose; and it’s answerable for a good deal.’
‘It would be a terrible responsibility to rob them of it,’ remarked the elder woman gravely.
Rhoda made a gesture of impatience.
‘It’s a terrible responsibility to do anything at all. But I’m glad’— she laughed scornfully —‘that it’s not my task to release them.’
Mary Barfoot mused, a compassionate shadow on her fine face.
‘I don’t think we can do without the spirit of that religion,’ she said at length —‘the essential human spirit. These poor women — one ought to be very tender with them. I don’t like your “ragged regiment” phrase. When I grow old and melancholy, I think I shall devote myself to poor hopeless and purposeless women — try to warm their hearts a little before they go hence.’
‘Admirable!’ murmured Rhoda, smiling. ‘But in the meantime they cumber us; we have to fight.’
She threw forward her arms, as though with spear and buckler. Miss Barfoot was smiling at this Palladin attitude when a servant announced two ladies — Mrs. Smallbrook and Miss Haven. They were aunt and niece; the former a tall, ungainly, sharp-featured widow; the later a sweet-faced, gentle, sensible-looking girl of five-and-twenty.
‘I am so glad you are back again,’ exclaimed the widow, as she shook hands with Miss Barfoot, speaking in a hard, unsympathetic voice. ‘I do so want to ask your advice about an interesting girl who has applied to me. I’m afraid her past won’t bear looking into, but most certainly she is a reformed character. Winifred is most favourably impressed with her —’
Miss Haven, the Winifred in question, began to talk apart with Rhoda Nunn.
‘I do wish my aunt wouldn’t exaggerate so,’ she said in a subdued voice, whilst Mrs. Smallbrook still talked loudly and urgently. ‘I never said that I was favourably impressed. The girl protests far too much; she has played on aunt’s weaknesses, I fear.’
‘But who is she?’
‘Oh, some one who lost her character long ago, and lives, I should say, on charitable people. Just because I said that she must once have had a very nice face, aunt misrepresents me in this way — it’s too bad.’
‘Is she an educated person?’ Miss Barfoot was heard to ask.
‘Not precisely well educated.’
‘Of the lower classes, then?’
‘I don’t like that term, you know. Of the poorer classes.’
‘She never was a lady,’ put in Miss Haven quietly but decidedly.
‘Then I fear I can be of no use,’ said the hostess, betraying some of her secret satisfaction in being able thus to avoid Mrs. Smallbrook’s request. Winifred, a pupil at Great Portland Street, was much liked by both her teachers; but the aunt, with her ceaseless philanthropy at other people’s expense, could only be considered a bore.
‘But surely you don’t limit your humanity, Miss Barfoot, by the artificial divisions of society.’
‘I think those divisions are anything but artificial,’ replied the hostess good-humouredly. ‘In the uneducated classes I have no interest whatever. You have