Annie Kilburn

The doctor laughed at this.

"Oh, I know," said Annie, "I know the fraudulent reputation I've got for

good works."

"Your charity to tramps is the opprobrium of Hatboro'," the doctor

consented.

"Oh, I don't mind that. It's easy when people ask you for food or money,

but the horrible thing is when they ask you for work. Think of me, who

never did anything to earn a cent in my life, being humbly asked by a

fellow-creature to let him work for something to eat and drink! It's

hideous! It's abominable! At first I used to be flattered by it, and try

to conjure up something for them to do, and to believe that I was helping

the deserving poor. Now I give all of them money, and tell them that they

needn't even pretend to work for it. _I_ don't work for my money, and

I don't see why they should."

"They'd find that an unanswerable argument if you put it to them," said the

doctor. He reached out his hand for the paper-cutter, and then withdrew it

in a way that made her laugh.

"But the worst of it is," she resumed, "that I don't love any of the people

that I help, or hurt, whichever it is. I did feel remorseful toward Mrs.

Savor for a while, but I didn't love her, and I knew that I only pitied

myself through her. Don't you see?"

"No, I don't," said the doctor.

"You don't, because you're too polite. The only kind of creature that I can

have any sympathy with is some little wretch like Idella, who is perfectly

selfish and naughty every way, but seems to want me to like her, and a

reprobate like Lyra, or some broken creature like poor Ralph. I think

there's something in the air, the atmosphere, that won't allow you to live

in the old way if you've got a grain of conscience or humanity. I don't

mean that _I_ have. But it seems to me as if the world couldn't go on

as it has been doing. Even here in America, where I used to think we had

the millennium because slavery was abolished, people have more liberty, but

they seem just as far off as ever from justice. That is what paralyses me

and mocks me and laughs in my face when I remember how I used to dream of

doing good after I came home. I had better stayed at Rome."

The doctor said vaguely, "I'm glad you didn't," and he let his eyes dwell

on her with a return of the professional interest which she was too lost in

her self reproach to be able to resent.