e a moment? I've been trying for one hour to make the hall key
work."

Julia said nothing. She mounted the steps and followed Miss Toland into
the hall.

CHAPTER VI

The Alexander Toland Neighbourhood House, familiarly known by all who
had anything to do with it as The Alexander, was small, as neighbourhood
houses go, but exceptionally pretty and complete, and financially so
well backed by a certain group of San Francisco's society women as to be
entirely free from the common trouble of its kind. Miss Toland had built
it, and had made it her personal business to interest some of her
friends in its success, but she now found herself confronted by an
unexpected problem: it seemed impossible to get an experienced woman as
resident worker with whom Miss Toland could live in peace. The few women
who had been qualified to try the position had all swiftly, quietly, and
firmly resigned, with that pained reticence that marks the trained
worker. Miss Toland told her committees, with good-humoured tolerance,
that Miss Smith or Mrs. Brown had been a splendid person, perfectly
splendid, but unable to understand the peculiar conditions that made
social work in San Francisco utterly--and totally--different from social
work elsewhere. Meanwhile, she did the best she could with volunteer
workers, daily bewailing the fact that, without the trained worker, her
girls' clubs and classes, her boys' and mothers' clubs, had been
difficult to start, and maintained but a languishing existence. She was
a sanguine woman, and filled with confidence in the eventual success of
The Alexander, and with energy to push it toward a completely fruitful
existence, but she herself was inexperienced, and Julia had chanced upon
her in a thoroughly discouraged mood.

Julia's first aid--in climbing through a transom and opening a stubborn
door--being entirely successful, Miss Toland kept her to show her the
little establishment, and was secretly soothed and pleased by the girl's
delight.

The front door opened into a wide square hall, furnished with neat
Mission chairs and tables, and with a large brown rug. There were two
doors on each side, and a large double door at the back. One door on the
right led to a model kitchen, floored in bright blue-and-white
linoleum, and with a shining stove, a shining dresser full of
blue-and-white china, a tiled sink, a table, and two chairs. The other
right-hand door opened into a little committee room, where there