"You notice that beggars never come through that street. They are a
nuisance and wealthy people don't want to see people in rags about
their doorsteps. Even the most charitable people are that way, I
guess," added Nan.
"Your mother is so generous, Walter, that if beggars had free access to
the street and the house, she could never go out of an afternoon without
having to push her way through a throng of the poor and diseased to reach
her carriage."
"Oh, mercy!" cried Bess.
"I guess that is so," admitted Walter. "You've got mother sized up
about right."
"I know it's so," said Nan, quickly. "Do you know, I think your mother,
Walter, would have made a good chatelaine of a castle in medieval times.
Then charitably inclined ladies were besieged by the poor and miserable
at their castle gates. The good lady gave them largess as she stepped
into her chariot. Their servants threw silver pennies at a distance so
that the unfortunates would scramble for the coins and leave a free
passage for miladi.
"In those days," pursued Nan, quite in earnest, "great plagues used to
destroy a large portion of the population--sweeping through the castles
of the rich as well as the hovels of the poor. That was because the
beggars hung so upon the skirts of the rich.
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