e I should be home in good
season; the school tea was at seven, and her own was always served at
six. So very gladly, with an inexpressible sense of freedom and
peace, I took off my coat and gloves, and followed my kind friend back
to the parlour where her fire was burning. For although it was late in
April, the day was cool and raw; and the fire one saw nowhere else was
delightful in Miss Cardigan's parlour.

Every minute of that afternoon was as bright as the fire glow. I sat
in the midst of that, on an ottoman, and Miss Cardigan, busy between
her two tables, made me very much interested in her story of some
distressed families for whom she was working. She asked me very little
about my own affairs; nothing that the most delicate good breeding did
not warrant; but she found out that my father and mother were at a
great distance from me, and I almost alone, and she gave me the
freedom of her house. I was to come there whenever I could and liked;
whenever I wanted to "rest my feet," as she said; especially I might
spend as much of every Sunday with her as I could get leave for. And
she made this first afternoon so pleasant to me with her gentle
beguiling talk, that the permission to come often was like the
entrance into a whole world of comfort. She had plenty to talk about;
plenty to tell, of the poor people to whom she and others were
ministering; of plans and methods to do them good; all which somehow
she made exceedingly interesting. There was just a little accent to
her words, which made them, in their peculiarity, all the more sweet
to me; but she spoke good English; the "noo" which slipped out now and
then, with one or two other like words, came only, I found, at times
when the fountain of feeling was more full than ordinary, and so
flowed over into the disused old channel. And her face was so fresh,
rosy, round and sweet, withal strong and sound, that it was a
perpetual pleasure to me.

As she told her stories of New York needy and suffering, I mentally
added my poor people at Magnolia, and began to wonder with myself, was
all the world so? Were these two spots but samples of the whole? I got
into a brown study, and was waked out of it by Miss Cardigan's "What
is it, my dear?"

"Ma'am?" I said.

"Ye are studying some deep question," she said, smiling. "Maybe it's
too big for you."

"So it is," said I, sighing. "Is it so everywhere, Miss Cardigan?"

"So how, my bairn?"

"Is there so much trouble everywh