find the poor are most delightful persons."

Sybil Dennant, seated on the sofa, with a feathery laugh shot a barking
terrier dog at Shelton.

"Here's Dick," she said. "Well, Dick, what's your opinion?"

Shelton looked around him, scared. The elder ladies who had spoken
had fixed their eyes on him, and in their gaze he read his utter
insignificance.

"Oh, that young man!" they seemed to say. "Expect a practical remark
from him? Now, come!"

"Opinion," he stammered, "of the poor? I haven't any."

The person on her feet, whose name was Mrs. Mattock, directing her
peculiar sweet-sour smile at the distinguished lady with the Times,
said:

"Perhaps you 've not had experience of them in London, Lady Bonington?"

Lady Bonington, in answer, rustled.

"Oh, do tell us about the slums, Mrs. Mattock!" cried Sybil.

"Slumming must be splendid! It's so deadly here--nothing but flannel
petticoats."

"The poor, my dear," began Mrs. Mattock, "are not the least bit what you
think them--"

"Oh, d' you know, I think they're rather nice!" broke in Aunt Charlotte
close to the hydrangea.

"You think so?" said Mrs. Mattock sharply. "I find they do nothing but
grumble."

"They don't grumble at me: they are delightful persons", and Lady
Bonington gave Shelton a grim smile.

He could not help thinking that to grumble in the presence of that rich,
despotic personality would require a superhuman courage.

"They're the most ungrateful people in the world," said Mrs. Mattock.

"Why, then," thought Shelton, "do you go amongst them?"

She continued, "One must do them good, one, must do one's duty, but as
to getting thanks--"

Lady Bonington sardonically said,

"Poor things! they have a lot to bear."

"The little children!" murmured Aunt Charlotte, with a flushing cheek
and shining eyes; "it 's rather pathetic."

"Children indeed!" said Mrs. Mattock. "It puts me out of all patience to
see the way that they neglect them. People are so sentimental about the
poor."

Lady Bonington creaked again. Her splendid shoulders were wedged into
her chair; her fine dark hair, gleaming with silver, sprang back upon
her brow; a ruby bracelet glowed on the powerful wrist that held the
journal; she rocked her copper-slippered foot. She did not appear to be
too sentimental.

"I know they often have a very easy time," said Mrs. Mattock, as if some
one had injured her severely. And Shelton saw, not without pity, that
Fate had scored her kind