and help will have to use
them and to keep their houses clean. There will be no distinction as to
character. We shall help the drunkards and the very worst of them just
the same as the others if they apply. If we get enough helpers there
will be plenty of branches we can open. I should like to have a
children's branch, for instance--one or two women will take the children
of the neighbourhood in hand and bathe them every day. As we get to
know the people better and appreciate their special needs other things
will suggest themselves. But I want them to feel that they have some
place to fail back upon. We shall be frightfully humbugged, robbed,
cheated, and deceived--at first. I fancy that after a time that will
wear itself out."

"It is a fascinating idea," she said, thoughtfully, "but to carry it out
in any way thoroughly you want a great many helpers and a great deal of
money."

"I have enough to start it," he said, "and when it is really going and
improving itself I shall go out and ask for subscriptions-big ones, you
know, from the right sort of people. You can always get money if you
can show that it is to be well spent."

"And what about the helpers?"

"Well, I know of a few," he said, "who I think would come in, and there
is one to whom I would have to pay a small salary."

"I could come in the afternoons," she said.

"Capital! But are you sure," he said, after a moment's hesitation,
"that it is quite fair to yourself?

"Oh, I can manage with my morning's salary," she answered, laughing. "I
shan't starve. Besides, I can always burn a little midnight oil."

A waiter stood at their table for a moment, deftly carving some new
dish, and Brooks, leaning back in his chair, glanced critically at his
companion. In his judgment she represented something in womankind
essentially of the durable type. He appreciated her good looks, the air
with which she wore her simple clothes, her large full eyes, her wide,
gently-humorous mouth, and the hair parted in the middle, and rippling
away towards her ears. A frank companionable woman, whose eyes had
never failed to look into his, in whom he had never at any time seen a
single shadow of embarrassment. It occurred to him just at that moment
that never since he had known her had he seen her interested to the
slightest degree in any man. He looked back at her thoughtfully. She
was young, good-looking, too catholic in her views of life and its
possibilities to refuse in any