again? They must be quite dry by
now."

"Oh! let me help you," I said impulsively. "Let me get you into a Home,
or help you to emigrate. Don't go back to this wandering, aimless life.
Work for others, interest in others, that is what _you_ need, what _I_
need, what we _all_ need to take us out of ourselves, to make us forget
our own misery."

"I have half forgotten mine already," she said. "To-night I remembered
it again. But I have long since put it from my mind. I think the moment
for a change of clothing in the kitchen has arrived."

She spoke quietly, but as if her last word were final. I found it
impossible to continue the subject.

"You will never escape in those clothes," I said. "You haven't the ghost
of a chance. If you will come into my room, I will see what I can find
for you."

I had been willing to do much more than give her clothes, but I
instinctively felt that my appeal to her better feelings had fallen on
deaf ears.

She followed me to my bedroom, and I got out all my oldest clothes and
spread them before her. But she would have none of them.

"The worst look like an ultra-respectable district visitor," she said,
tossing aside one garment after another. It was the more curious that
she should say that because my brother-in-law had always said I looked
like one, and that my books even had a parochial flavour about them. But
then he had never really studied them, or he would have seen their
lighter side.

"I had no idea pockets were worn in a little slit in the front seam,"
said my visitor. "It shows how long it is since I have been 'in the
know.' No doubt front pockets came in with the bicycles. No. It is very
kind of you. But, except for that old dyed moreen petticoat, the things
won't do. I always was particular about dress, and I never was more so
than I am at this moment. You don't happen to have an old black ulster
with all the buttons off, and a bit of mangy fur dropping off the neck?
That's more my style. But of course you haven't."

"I had one once of that kind; it was so bad that I could not even give
it away. So I put it in the dog's basket. Lindo used to sleep on it. He
loved it, poor dear! It may be there still."

We went downstairs again, and I pulled Lindo's basket out from under the
stairs.

The old black wrap was still in it, but it was mildewy and stuck to the
basket. It tore as I released it. It reminded me painfully of my lost
darling.

"The very thing!" she said, wit