But there are plenty more, as badly off.'

'As badly,--and worse.'

'You _cannot_ take care of them all.'

'Therefore--? What is your deduction from that fact?'

'Where are you going to stop?'

'Where ought I to stop? Put yourself, in imagination, in that condition
I have described; the chill of a rheumatic fever, and a room without
fire, in the depth of winter. What would your sense of justice demand
from the well and strong and comfortable and _able?_ Honestly.'

'Why,' said Betty, again surveying Pitt from one side, '_with my
notions_, I should want a doctor, and an attendant, and a comfortable
room.'

'I do not doubt his notions would agree with yours,--if his fancy could
get so far.'

'But who ought to furnish those things for him is another question.'

'Another, but not more hard to answer. The Bible rule is, "Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it--"'

'Will you, ought you, to do all that you find to do?'

But Pitt went on, in a quiet business tone: 'In that same court I
found, some time ago, a man who had been injured by an accident. A
heavy piece of iron had fallen on his foot; he worked in a machine
shop. For months he was obliged to stay at home under the doctor's
care. He used up all his earnings; and strength and health were alike
gone. The man of fifty looked like seventy. The doctor said he could
hardly grow strong again, without change of air.'

'Mr. Pitt!'--said Betty, and stopped.

'He has a wife and nine children.'

'What did you do?'

'What would you have done?'

'I don't know! I never thought it was my business to supplement all the
world's failures.'

'Suppose for a moment it were Christ the Lord himself in either of
these situations we have been looking at?'

'I cannot suppose it!'

'How would you feel about ministry _then?_'

Betty was silent, choked with discomfort now.

'Would you think you could do enough? But, Miss Frere, He says it _is_
Himself, in every case of His servants; and what is done to them He
counts as done to Himself. And so it is!'

Looking again keenly at the speaker, Betty was sure that the eyes,
which did not meet hers, were soft with moisture.

'What did you do for that man?'

'I sent him to the seaside for three weeks. He came back perfectly
well. But then his employers would not take him on again; they said
they wanted younger men; so I had to find new work for him.'

'There was another old woman you told me of in that dreadful court;
wh