d work to keep them closed, I could see that plainly enough."

Minnie laughed.

"I know it was," she confessed, "but I must say I did not dream that my
efforts would be appreciated as thoroughly as they seem to have been."

"Well, be thankful it _is_ so," advised Mabel. "And now I'm off.
Good-bye."

That evening Minnie, seizing a favourable moment when the boys were all
out, and she and her father alone, unfolded to him her scheme for the
reformation of Hollowmell. He was, of course, greatly surprised, and at
first very reluctant to allow his daughter to go among these people,
even for the purpose she had at heart.

"You don't know what sort of people these miners are, my dear," he said
when Minnie had made known to him in as few words as possible what she
wished to do. "And as for reforming them, I don't think that possible, I
don't indeed. You had better leave that to the missionary, I think, or
to some one who knows the sort of folks they are, and how to deal with
them."

"But they have proved that they don't know how to deal with them, they
have all failed, so I mean to try a different plan from any of the
common methods, besides I shall only have to do with the children at
first; I want to try to influence the older people through them. Come,
papa, _do_ let me have the cottage and make a trial, and I promise if
the result does not please you to give it up at the end of a month."

Mr. Kimberly shook his head a good deal, and grumbled a little that she
might find something better to occupy her time than amusing a lot of
dirty ragamuffins who would never thank her for her trouble, but finally
gave in, to the unbounded delight of Minnie, who, it may be remarked,
had never entertained a doubt as to the final issue of the debate,
knowing well that her father would refuse her nothing on which she had
so strenuously set her heart.

"And how about the jacket?" he inquired, when she laid before him her
financial scheme, in a business-like manner which greatly amused and
delighted him.

"O, you know, I can do without that quite well. You don't imagine,
surely, that it is because a sealskin is warmer or for any reason of
that description that I want it. It is only because it looks finer, and
it is so great a satisfaction to have such a thing that I wanted it--in
fact, only to gratify my vanity, which is gratified too much already by
a certain old gentleman who evidently thinks there never _was_ such
another girl as