o. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm
wrong, but I must try."

"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this
God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?"

"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life."

"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money,
then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't
poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a
benefactress!"

"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything--I only want to help unhappy
wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling
hand. "Now don't scold me--forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with
me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping
back to you and Peter. But I _must_ do it--I _must_ try--I _will_ do
what I think is right."

"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?"

"Oh, those I am sorriest for--that no one else helps--the genteel ones,
if I can only get at them."

"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie.

Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this
morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big
roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to
see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be
so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money,
and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share
mine, and have everything that I have--exactly the same, with no
difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't
it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all
courage, happy for the rest of their days?"

"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer
able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what
to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at
all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument
would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked
that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should
be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the
situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a
house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a
sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would the