Most persons would have
admitted that she was wonderfully practical and showed a great deal of
common sense in what she did; to her own people she seemed
preternaturally wise, only to be compared with Providence for her
foresight, and much more occupied with their especial welfare than
Providence could be expected to be, considering the extent of the world.
She was endlessly charitable to women and children and old men, but to
those who could work she was inexorable. She paid well, but she insisted
that the work should be done honestly. Some of the younger ones murmured
at her hardness when they had tried to deceive her.
"Would you take false money from me?" she asked. "Why should I take
false work from you? You have good work to sell, and I have good money
to give you for it. I do not cheat you. Do not try to cheat me."
They laughed shamefacedly and worked better the next time, for they were
not without common sense, either. Doubtless, she attempted and expected
more than was possible at first, but she had Don Teodoro at her elbow,
and he was able to direct her energy, though he could not have
moderated it. He found it hard, indeed, to keep pace with her swift
advances towards the civilization of Muro, and he was quite incapable of
entering into the boldness of some of her generalizations, which, to
tell the truth, were youthful enough when she first expressed her ideas
to him. But while one of his two great passions was learning, the other
was charity, in that simple form which gives all it has to any one who
seems to be in trouble--the charity that is universal, and easily
imposed upon, and that exists spontaneously and, as it were, for its own
sake, in certain warm-hearted people--an indiscriminate love of giving
to the poor, the overflow of a heart so full of kindness that it would
be kind to a withering flower or a half-dead tree, rather than not
expend itself at all.
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