For The Widow And The Fatherless


At the initiative of George Boult a subscription was opened for "the widow
and children of the late William Day, who had left them without any means
of support."

This sad and irrefutable statement was made in an advertisement in the
local newspaper, and was written, in Mr. Boult's own round and clerkly
hand, on the top of the list of subscribers hanging in conspicuous places
in the Banks, the Public Library, the principal shops of the town.

It was said by those competent to form an opinion that the engineering of
this scheme to help poor Mrs. Day and her children should have been in
other hands. That George Boult's social position in the town did not
entitle him to head the list. A banker's name should have figured there,
or the name of the M. P. for Brockenham, or Sir Francis Forcus's name.
With such an influential person to lead the way it was argued that the
smaller fry would have been more willing to follow suit. It was also
whispered that one of such persons of wealth and note would have led off
with at least a hundred pounds. George Boult's name was down for fifty.

It was a large amount for him to give--not because he could not well have
afforded more, but because he was all unaccustomed to giving. He had been
known to be the unhappy man's friend, and because he headed the list with
his fifty pounds it was said that no one liked to outdo that donation. Sir
Francis Forcus, in order to avoid hurting those sensitive feelings with
which Mr. Boult was accredited, had the happy thought to put his own name
down for fifty pounds, and those of his wife and his young brother, each