pon my privileges and ask you to help me in my life-work; and
my life-work, as you know, is to ameliorate the condition of the poor,
and to carry to some extent the burdens which they are bound to bear."

Elisabeth looked up at him, her face full of interest; no appeal to her
pity was ever made in vain. If people expected her to admire them, they
were frequently disappointed; if they wished her to fear them, their
wish was absolutely denied; but if they only wanted her to be sorry for
them, they were abundantly satisfied, sympathy being the keynote of her
character. She was too fastidious often to admire; she was too strong
ever to fear; but her tenderness was unfailing toward those who had once
appealed to her pity, and whose weakness had for once allowed itself to
rest upon her strength. Therefore Alan's desire to help the poor, and to
make them happier, struck the dominant chord in her nature; but
unfortunately when she raised her eyes, full of sympathetic sympathy, to
his, she encountered that look in the latter which had frightened her at
the beginning of the excursion; so she again clothed herself in her
garment of flippancy, and hardened her heart as the nether millstone. In
blissful unconsciousness Alan continued--

"Society is just now passing through a transition stage. The interests
of capital and labour are at war with each other; the rich and the poor
are as two armies made ready for battle, and the question is, What can
we do to bridge over the gulf between the classes, and to induce them
each to work for, instead of against, the other? It is these transition
stages which have proved the most difficult epochs in the world's
history."

"I hate transition stages and revolutions, they are so unsettling. It
seems to me they are just like the day when your room is cleaned; and
that is the most uncomfortable day in the whole week. Don't you know it?
You go upstairs in the accustomed way, fearing nothing; but when you
open the door you find the air dark with dust and the floor with
tea-leaves, and nothing looking as it ought to look. Prone on its face
on the bed, covered with a winding-sheet, lies your overthrown
looking-glass; and underneath it, in a shapeless mass, are huddled
together all the things that you hold dearest upon earth. You thrust in
your hand to get something that you want, and it is a pure chance
whether your Bible or your button-hook rises to the surface. And it
seems to me that transition pe