have not."

"Everywhere, in Europe, they were talking of you, Mrs. Walters," said
a lady, who had spent many years abroad, "and adopting your plans for
vagrant and industrial schools, and for the management of hospitals and
asylums. I have seen your name in the memorials laid before government
in various foreign countries. You have certainly achieved a world-wide
reputation. Do tell me how your attention came first to be turned to
that sort of thing? I supposed you were one of our fashionable women,
who sought simply to know how much care and responsibility they could
lawfully avoid, and how high a social station it was possible to
attain. I am sure something must have happened to turn your life into so
different a channel."

"Nothing in particular, I assure you," returned Mrs. Walters. "I came
gradually to perceive the necessity there was that some one should take
personal and decisive action in those things that it was so customary
to neglect. Fond as men are of money, it was far easier to reach their
purses than their minds. Our public charities were quite well endowed,
but no one gave them that attention that they needed, and thus evils had
crept in that were of the highest importance. My attention was attracted
to it in my own vicinity at first; and others saw it as well as I, but
it was so much of everybody's business that everybody let it alone. I
followed the example for awhile, but it seemed as much my duty to act as
that of any other person; and though it is little I have done, I
think that, in that little, I have filled the place designed for me by
Providence."

"Well, really, Mrs. Walters, you were one of the last persons I should
have imagined to be nicely balancing a point of duty, or searching out
the place designed for them by Providence. I must confess myself at
fault in my judgment of character for once."

"Indeed, madam," replied Mrs. Walters, "I have no doubt you judged me
very correctly at the time you knew me. My first ideas of the duties and
responsibilities of life were aroused by Margaret Winne; and I recollect
that my intimacy with her commenced after you left the country."

"Margaret Winne? Who was she? Not the wife of that little Dr. Winne we
used to hear of occasionally? They attended the same church with us, I
believe?"

"Yes; she was the one. We grew up together, and were familiar with each
other's faces from childhood; but this was about all. She was always in
humble circumstances