"Oh, are you really going to do this blessed, glorious thing?" she said. She had forgotten herself for the moment, and was thinking only of them--the wretched beings whose wrongs had so long oppressed her, and who, it seemed, were to have justice and care and kindness at last. "You don't know how hideous the condition of these poor creatures is, and how impossible it has been for me to do anything in the past. To think there is some one who will let me tell about it at last and give the help that is so needed! But you can do nothing with such a steward as Kirke. His heart is as cold as ice."
"Kirke shall go at once. I have long believed that he was unworthy of the position he holds. If you will give me the benefit of your investigation and insight into the situation you will save me much trouble, and you can also feel that these poor people will be that much nearer to having their distress relieved."
At these prompt, determined words her heart swelled, and again tears brimmed her eyes.
"Oh, thank God that you will help them!" she said. "Now that I am sure of that, I can go away contented. It would have broken my heart to leave them so--yet I had not dared to hope that I could do anything. You have no idea of the extent of it. It will take a great deal of money to give them new houses, proper sanitary conditions, and all the things they need."
"Never mind that--only tell me what to do."
"But _can_ you do it? I know how comparatively limited you are as to money."
"Comparatively only," he said, reassuringly. "I have much less than my predecessor had, but fortunately I have little pride and simple tastes. I can let the place in Leicestershire, where the hunting is good, and I can also lease the town house if necessary. Pray consider that the question of money is disposed of. I assure you that does not enter into it."
Thus invited, Bettina sat down before the desk, while he took a seat near by, and with the papers before her she went fully into the questions at issue, showing a grasp of the situation which soon testified to her companion that she had studied it to some purpose. All the changes which she recommended were approved, but more than once his attention was diverted from the purpose of the future to an indignant contempt for the delinquencies of the past. It was hard for him to constrain himself to silence as to this, but Bettina thanked him in her heart for the successful effort which he made. She was too abject in her sense of compunction for her own past to feel inclined to severe judgment of another, and in her joy that these cherished plans of hers were to be immediately realized she was able to put by for the moment more personal trouble. She spoke with a fervor that made her beautiful face wellnigh adorable in its kind compassion, and when she would describe the wrongs and hardships of these poor simple folk her eyes at times would fill with tears of pity and her voice would tremble.