k
I should only have what I had saved from my wreck--some two hundred a
year--to support me until I should find some other means of livelihood.
It was enough to keep me from starvation, and the little economies I had
begun to practise afforded me enjoyment. On the other hand, how folks
regulated their balance-sheets so as to live on two hundred a year I had
but a dim notion. In the course of our walk from Barbara's Building to
the Judds the night before I had asked Campion. He had laughed somewhat
grimly.

"I don't know. I don't run an asylum for spendthrift plutocrats; but if
you want to see how people live and bring up large families on fifteen
shillings a week, I can show you heaps of examples."

This I felt would, in itself, be knowledge of the deepest interest; but
it would in no way aid me to solve my own economic difficulty. I was
always being brought up suddenly against the problem in some form or
another, and, as I say, it caused me considerable amusement.

"I shall go on happily enough," said I, reassuringly. "In the meantime
let us go and see the lions and tigers."

We started. The electric brougham glided along comfortably through the
sunlit streets. A feeling of physical and spiritual content stole over
me. Our hands met and lingered a long time in a sympathetic clasp.
Whatever fortune held in store for me here at least I had an inalienable
possession. For some time we said nothing, and when our eyes met she
smiled. I think she had never felt my heart so near to hers. At last we
broke the silence and talked of ordinary things. I told her of my vigil
overnight and my undertaking to look after the Judds. She listened
with great interest. When I had finished my tale, she said almost
passionately:

"Oh, I wish I could do something like that!"

"You?"

"Why not? I came from those people. My grandfather swept the cages in
Jamrach's down by the docks. He died of drink. He used to live in one
horrible, squalid room near by. I remember my father taking me to see
him when I was a little girl--we ourselves weren't very much better off
at that time. I've been through it," she shivered. "I know what that
awful poverty is. Sometimes it seems immoral of me to live luxuriously
as I do now without doing a hand's turn to help."

"_Chacun a son metier_, my dear," said I. "There's no need to reproach
yourself."

"But I think it might be my _metier_," she replied earnestly, "if only I
could learn it."

"Why haven'