refused to help, or, in any way to encourage, the idle;
they handed the obstreperous and violent over to the police, with the
hope--if not the recommendation--that the rod should not be spared; and
in all cases they prayed for them. The results were considerable, but,
not being ostentatiously trumpeted, were not always recognised or traced
to their true cause.

"Come away, darling," exclaimed Miss Pritty, eagerly embracing and
kissing her friend, who accepted, but did not return, the embrace,
though she did the kiss. "I thought you were not coming at all, and I
have not seen you for a whole week! What has kept you? There, put off
your hat. I'm _so_ glad to see you, dear Aileen. Isn't it strange that
I'm so fond of you? They say that people who are contrasts generally
draw together--at least I've often heard Mrs Boxer, the wife of Captain
Boxer, you know, of the navy, who used to swear so dreadfully before he
was married, but, I am happy to say, has quite given it up now, which
says a great deal for wedded life, though it's a state that I don't
quite believe in myself, for if Adam had never married Eve he would not
have been tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, and so there would have
been no sin and no sorrow or poverty--no poor! Only think of that."

"So that our chief occupation would have been gone," said Aileen, with a
slight twinkle of her lustrous blue eyes, "and perhaps you and I might
never have met."

Miss Pritty replied to this something very much to the effect that she
would have preferred the entrance of sin and all its consequences--
poverty included--into the world, rather than have missed making the
friendship of Miss Hazlit. At least her words might have borne that
interpretation--or any other!

"My father detained me," said Aileen, seating herself at the table,
while her volatile friend put lumps of sugar into the cups, with a
tender yet sprightly motion of the hand, as if she were doing the cups a
special kindness--as indeed she was, when preparing one of them to touch
the lips of Aileen.

"Naughty man, why did he detain you?" said Miss Pritty.

"Only to write one or two notes, his right hand being disabled at
present by rheumatism."

"A gentleman, Miss, in the dinin'-room," said the small domestic,
suddenly opening a chink of the door for the admission of her somewhat
dishevelled head. "He won't send his name up--says he wants to see
you."

"How vexing!" exclaimed Miss Pritty, "but