lth of speech but changing consonants, slurring vowels, making at
length of the beautiful English tongue an ugly, degraded thing. "Aw, I
say, gimme dat!"

Kathleen prided herself upon her speech. She was born in Ireland, though
she had little recollection of the fact, having arrived at the port of
New York while taking nourishment at the maternal fount. "And it was you
was screaming and beating me with your little fists, mavourneen," her
mother used to say, "when I was making shift to button up my dress
decently and carry you down the gangplank." She kept something of the
richness of the Irish speech that had surrounded her in her childhood,
despising the slang that with many an emigrant takes the place of a
language. She might make a slip in grammar, but she never wittingly
misused a word. Hertha's ladylike talk with its soft accent was a
delight, and a little warm wave of pride swept over her as she looked at
the girl walking by her side and remembered that she had chosen to come
to her home.

"Just here to the left a step, dear," she said, "and we'll be out of the
cold."

The air within the large, ill-ventilated hall could also be tasted, but
no one could truthfully describe it as cold and fresh. It took the
vitality out of Hertha, leaving her both tired and sleepy; but to
Kathleen it was the breath of a new life. Moving amongst her fellows,
nodding here, whispering a friendly "Good evening, comrade," there, she
found the seats that she wanted, and, leaning well forward in her chair,
gave herself to the discussion.

The address of the evening was over, but the speaker, a small man, ill
shaven, with a sallow skin and sharp features, was answering questions.
To Hertha he was a familiar and an unpleasant type of rural southern
white, and she paid him little attention, slipping back into her dream
story which had already reached the point where the beautiful and still
young looking couple were being presented with sturdy grandchildren. To
the audience, however, the meeting was growing in interest. Some one
from the floor was casting doubt upon the picture the southerner had
presented, suggesting that poverty in the country, in a warm climate,
could not equal the severity of poverty in a northern slum.

As the speaker rose to reply his eyes shone with excitement. "Have I
exaggerated the suffering of the country?" he asked. "Let me tell you of
just one tenant farmer, and, remember, there are hundreds of thousands
lik