tments," Mary went on, "all need some instruction.
Would you think it worth while for one day? If so, I should be pleased
to do what I can for you."

Sybil hesitated. She glanced towards Brooks.

"I don't want to give a lot of unnecessary trouble, of course," she
said. "Especially if you are busy. But it might be for more than one
day. You have a staff of supernumerary helpers, haven't you, whom you
send for when you are busy? I thought that I might be one of those."

"In that case," Mary answered, "I shall be very glad, of course, to put
you in the way of it. I am going to my own branch this morning at
Stepney. Will you come with me?"

"If you are sure I shan't be a nuisance," Sybil answered, gratefully.
"Good-bye, Mr. Brooks. I'm awfully obliged to you, and will talk it
all over at the Henages' to-night."

The two girls drove off in Sybil's brougham. Mary, in her quiet little
hat and plain jacket, seemed to her companion, notwithstanding her air
of refinement, to be a denizen of some other world. And between the two
there was from the first a certain amount of restraint.

"Do you give up your whole time to this sort of work?" Sybil asked,
presently.

"I do now," Mary answered. "I had other employment in the morning, but
I gave that up last week. I am a salaried official of the Society from
last Monday."

Sybil stole a swift side-glance at her.

"Do you know, I think that it must be a very satisfactory sort of life,"
she said.

Mary's lips flickered into the faintest of smiles. "Really!"

"Oh, I mean it," Sybil continued. "Of course, I like going about and
enjoying myself, but it is hideously tiring. And then after a year or
two of it you begin to realize a sort of sameness. Things lose their
flavour. Then you have odd times of serious thought, and you know that
you have just been going round and round in a circle, that you have done
nothing at all except made some show at enjoying yourself. Now that
isn't very satisfactory, is it?"

"No," Mary answered, "I don't suppose it is."

"Now you," Sybil continued, "you may be dull sometimes, but I don't
suppose you are, and whenever you leave off and think--well, you must
always feel that your time, instead of having been wasted, has been well
and wholesomely spent. I wish I could have that feeling sometimes."

Despite herself, Mary felt that she would have to like this girl. She
was so pretty, so natural, and so deeply in earnest.

"There is no reason why