eeping her eye on the girls, that carefully
selected library, the porter's bell, these casual allusions to
"discipline" that set her thinking of scraps of the Babs Wheeler
controversy. There was a regularity, an austerity about this project
that chilled her, she hardly knew why. Her own vague intentions had been
an amiable, hospitable, agreeably cheap establishment to which the
homeless feminine employees in London could resort freely and
cheerfully, and it was only very slowly that she perceived that her
husband was by no means convinced of the spontaneity of their coming. He
seemed always glancing at methods for compelling them to come in and
oppressions when that compulsion had succeeded. There had already
hovered over several of these anticipatory evenings, his very manifest
intention to have very carefully planned "Rules." She felt there lay
ahead of them much possibility for divergence of opinion about these
"Rules." She foresaw a certain narrowness and hardness. She herself had
made her fight against the characteristics of Sir Isaac and--perhaps she
was lacking in that aristocratic feeling which comes so naturally to
most successful middle-class people in England--she could not believe
that what she had found bad and suffocating for herself could be
agreeable and helpful for her poorer sisters.

It occurred to her to try the effect of the scheme upon Susan Burnet.
Susan had such a knack of seeing things from unexpected angles. She
contrived certain operations upon the study blinds, and then broached
the business to Susan casually in the course of an enquiry into the
welfare of the Burnet family.

Susan was evidently prejudiced against the idea.

"Yes," said Susan after various explanations and exhibitions, "but
where's the home in it?"

"The whole thing is a home."

"Barracks _I_ call it," said Susan. "Nobody ever felt at home in a room
coloured up like that--and no curtains, nor vallances, nor toilet
covers, nor anywhere where a girl can hang a photograph or anything.
What girl's going to feel at home in a strange place like that?"

"They ought to be able to hang up photographs," said Lady Harman, making
a mental note of it.

"And of course there'll be all sorts of Rules."

"_Some_ rules."

"Homes, real homes don't have Rules. And I daresay--Fines."

"No, there shan't be any Fines," said Lady Harman quickly. "I'll see to
that."

"You got to back up rules somehow--once you got 'em," said Susan. "And