ssey replied.

The inventor's face grew sad. He had dreamed of John Massey's response,
a dream built on sand, as perhaps he should have known. But hope eternal
sprang in his heart, and the belief that every man wished the best for
his brother.

The silence continued. To break it Mr. Massey turned to David.

"Your friend seems to think he has but to put before me the need for
charity and I shall thank him effusively."

David spoke slowly: "My friend should have known better. He forgot, I
suppose, your slums where you house your mill hands."

"What do you mean by that?" Mr. Massey began, when an exclamation from
Suzanna, who was standing at the window, turned his attention there.

"See, there's a big fire over behind the big field," she cried
excitedly. "Oh, look at the flames! The poor, poor people!"

David sprang to the window. "It's over in the huddled district," he
cried. A fierce light sprang to his eyes. "Where most of your men live
with their families, John Massey. I wonder how many will escape."

CHAPTER XIX

SUZANNA PUTS A REQUEST

In that devastating fire which swept out of existence the entire
tenement district of Anchorville two were lost, never to be heard of
again, parents of a twain of children, a boy of four and a girl of
three.

Mrs. Procter, finding the mites wandering away from the smoking ruins,
had at once taken them home with her, fed them, found clothes for them,
and rocked the tired little girl to sleep.

"Are we going to keep them forever, mother?" Maizie asked one afternoon
about two weeks after the fire. No one had put in a claim for the
children; they were homeless, friendless. What was to be done with them?
Mrs. Procter had turned with loathing from the thought of the orphanage.

She stood at Maizie's question in deep perplexity. She could not turn
the children away or put them in an institution--and yet, how could she
care for them? There was the very definite problem of extra clothes and
food to be found out of an income already stretched to its utmost.

"They haven't a home any more, have they, mother?" Suzanna asked, the
while her earnest eyes searched her mother's face. "So we should do unto
others as we'd be done by, shouldn't we?"

A vague memory returned to Mrs. Procter. What was it Suzanna had once
said? "Mrs. Procter cuddles all children in her heart." And Suzanna and
Maizie stood watching her, asking a literal translation of a principle
laid down for man's