t not less sweet.

"I am twenty, dear," she said. "Too old to dance _all_ the time, and I
cannot help _thinking_, you know. And--it's no use, papa dear! I _must_
do something! It _is_ 'yes,' isn't it?"

"You are sure you won't mind being criticised and ridiculed?"

"Quite sure!" answered Angela.

"And sure you won't take your failures and disappointments to heart too
deeply?"

"Quite sure I can bear them bravely," answered the girl. "If only one,
_just one_, of those poor creatures may be helped, and lifted up, and
brought out of darkness, it will be worth trying for!"

"And what does Robert Johns say about it?"

A glow kindled in Angela's face.

"Robert is in perfect sympathy with me," she said softly. Then again,
this time having risen and gone around to his side, to speak with her
face against the old banker's smoothly shaven cheek, "It _is_ 'yes,'
isn't it, daddy dear?"

"Well, yes! Only you must go slow, dear. You are not over strong, you
know."

And soon it came to pass that on a vacant lot, hitherto given over to
refuse heaps, haunted by stray cats, ragpickers, and vagrant children,
in one of the vilest quarters of the metropolis, there sprang up, with
magic swiftness, a commodious frame building, surrounded by smooth green
sod, known in the lower circles as the Locust Street Home; in upper
circles, laughingly denominated "Angela's Experiment."

Angela did not mind. It was mostly goodnatured laughter, and many of the
laughers ended by lending willing hands and hearts to the cause. It was
wonderful how the news spread through the city's purlieus that here was
a sanctuary into which cold, hunger, and fatigue dared not intrude; a
place which the lowest might enter and be made welcome, and go
unquestioned, his personal rights as carefully respected as though he
were one of the Four Hundred.

That was Angela's theory. No man, woman, or child should be _compelled_
to anything. First make their bodies comfortable, then surround them
with ennobling influences and examples, entertain them, arouse them,
stimulate them, hold out the helping hand, _and leave the rest to God_.
"They shall not even be _compelled_ to be clean!" she said, laughing.
"If the beautiful clean bathrooms and clean clothing do not tempt them
to cleanliness, then so be it! I will have no rules; only influences.
You will see!"

And people did see, and wondered.

Sometimes, on warm, pleasant evenings, the spacious, cheerful hall, with
i