ights, and the children were already
seated at the four long tables, where half a dozen ladies were supplying
them with enamelled bowls filled with steaming soup. They attacked it
ravenously, and the absence of the talk and laughter that ordinarily
accompany children's feasts touched her, impressed upon her, as nothing
else had done, the destitution of the homes from which these little ones
had come. The supplies that came to Hampton, the money that poured into
Headquarters were not enough to allay the suffering even now. And what if
the strike should last for months! Would they be able to hold out, to
win? In this mood of pity, of anxiety mingled with appreciation and
gratitude for what this man was doing, she turned to speak to him, to
perceive on the platform at the end of the room a lady seated. So
complete was the curve of her back that her pose resembled a letter u set
sidewise, the gap from her crossed knee to her face being closed by a
slender forearm and hand that held a lorgnette, through which she was
gazing at the children with an apparently absorbed interest. This
impression of willowy flexibility was somehow heightened by large,
pear-shaped pendants hanging from her ears, by a certain filminess in her
black costume and hat. Flung across the table beside her was a long coat
of grey fur. She struck an odd note here, presented a strange contrast to
Janet's friend from Silliston, with his rough suit and fine but rugged
features.

"I'm sorry I haven't a table for you just at present," he was saying.
"But perhaps you'll let me take your order,"--and he imitated the
obsequious attitude of a waiter. "A little fresh caviar and a clear soup,
and then a fish--?"

The lady took down her lorgnette and raised an appealing face.

"You're always joking, Brooks," she chided him, "even when you're doing
things like this! I can't get you to talk seriously even when I come all
the way from New York to find out what's going on here."

"How hungry children eat, for instance?" he queried.

"Dear little things, it's heartrending!" she exclaimed. "Especially when
I think of my own children, who have to be made to eat. Tell me the
nationality of that adorable tot at the end."

"Perhaps Miss Bumpus can tell you," he ventured. And Janet, though
distinctly uncomfortable and hostile to the lady, was surprised and
pleased that he should have remembered her name. "Brooks," she had called
him. That was his first name. This strange a