tenement where lived Jamie and the Murphys. (That she owned the
tenement building she did not think it necessary to state.) At some
length she explained to Pollyanna that there were charitable
institutions, both numerous and efficient, whose business it was to
aid all the worthy poor, and that to these institutions she gave
frequently and liberally.

Even then, however, Pollyanna was not convinced.

"But I don't see," she argued, "why it's any better, or even so nice,
for a whole lot of folks to club together and do what everybody would
like to do for themselves. I'm sure I'd much rather give Jamie a--a
nice book, now, than to have some old Society do it; and I KNOW he'd
like better to have me do it, too."

"Very likely," returned Mrs. Carew, with some weariness and a little
exasperation. "But it is just possible that it would not be so well
for Jamie as--as if that book were given by a body of people who knew
what sort of one to select."

This led her to say much, also (none of which Pollyanna in the least
understood), about "pauperizing the poor," the "evils of
indiscriminate giving," and the "pernicious effect of unorganized
charity."

"Besides," she added, in answer to the still perplexed expression on
Pollyanna's worried little face, "very likely if I offered help to
these people they would not take it. You remember Mrs. Murphy
declined, at the first, to let me send food and clothing--though they
accepted it readily enough from their neighbors on the first floor, it