u are back again,' exclaimed the widow, as she shook
hands with Miss Barfoot, speaking in a hard, unsympathetic voice. 'I do
so want to ask your advice about an interesting girl who has applied to
me. I'm afraid her past won't bear looking into, but most certainly she
is a reformed character. Winifred is most favourably impressed with
her--'

Miss Haven, the Winifred in question, began to talk apart with Rhoda
Nunn.

'I do wish my aunt wouldn't exaggerate so,' she said in a subdued
voice, whilst Mrs. Smallbrook still talked loudly and urgently. 'I
never said that I was favourably impressed. The girl protests far too
much; she has played on aunt's weaknesses, I fear.'

'But who is she?'

'Oh, some one who lost her character long ago, and lives, I should say,
on charitable people. Just because I said that she must once have had a
very nice face, aunt misrepresents me in this way--it's too bad.'

'Is she an educated person?' Miss Barfoot was heard to ask.

'Not precisely well educated.'

'Of the lower classes, then?'

'I don't like that term, you know. Of the _poorer_ classes.'

'She never was a lady,' put in Miss Haven quietly but decidedly.

'Then I fear I can be of no use,' said the hostess, betraying some of
her secret satisfaction in being able thus to avoid Mrs. Smallbrook's
request. Winifred, a pupil at Great Portland Street, was much liked by
both her teachers; but the aunt, with her ceaseless philanthropy at
other people's expense, could only be considered a bore.

'But surely you don't limit your humanity, Miss Barfoot, by the
artificial divisions of society.'

'I think those divisions are anything but artificial,' replied the
hostess good-humouredly. 'In the uneducated classes I have no interest
whatever. You have heard me say so.

'Yes, but I cannot think--isn't that just a little narrow?'

'Perhaps so. I choose my sphere, that's all. Let those work for the
lower classes (I must call them lower, for they are, in every sense),
let those work for them who have a call to do so. I have none. I must
keep to my own class.'

'But surely, Miss Nunn,' cried the widow, turning to Rhoda, 'we work
for the abolition of all unjust privilege? To us, is not a woman a
woman?'

'I am obliged to agree with Miss Barfoot. I think that as soon as we
begin to meddle with uneducated people, all our schemes and views are
unsettled. We have to learn a new language, for one thing. But your
missionary enterprise is ad