property,
and, as soon as it was assured that she would incur no danger, she went
over the houses in the company of the builder whom Abraham had chosen
to carry out his proposed restorations. The improvements were proceeded
with at once, greatly to the astonishment of the tenants, to whom such
changes inevitably suggested increase of rent. These fears Ida did her
best to dispel. Dressed in the simplest possible way, and with that
kind, quiet manner which was natural to her, she went about from room
to room, and did her best to become intimately acquainted with the
woman-kind of the Lane and the Court. It was not an easy end to
compass. She was received at first with extreme suspicion; her
appearance aroused that distrust which with the uneducated attaches to
everything novel. In many instances she found it difficult to get it
believed' that she was really the "landlord." But when this idea had
been gradually mastered, and when, moreover, it was discovered that she
brought no tracts, spoke not at all of religious matters, was not
impertinently curious, and showed indeed that she knew a good deal of
what she talked about, something like respect for her began to spring
up here and there, and she was spoken of as "the right sort."

Ida was excellently fitted for the work she had undertaken. She knew so
well, from her own early experience, the nature of the people with whom
she was brought in contact, and had that instinctive sympathy with
their lives without which it is so vain to attempt practical social
reform. She started with no theory, and as yet had no very definite end
in view; it simply appeared to her that, as owner of these slums,
honesty and regard for her own credit required that she should make
them decent human habitations, and give what other help she could to
people obviously so much in need of it. The best was that she
understood how and when such help could be afforded. To native
practicality and prudence she added a keen recollection of the wants
and difficulties she had struggled through in childhood; there was no
danger of her being foolishly lavish in charity, when she could foresee
with sympathy all the evil results which would ensue. Her only
temptation to imprudence was when, as so often happened, she saw some
little girl in a position which reminded her strongly of her own dark
days; all such she would have liked to take home with her and somehow
provide for, saving them from the wretched alternat