to impose middle-
class ideals upon a too long suffering proletariat. Better far a few
lively little heads than a broken-spirited people robbed of their
parental rights.

Through Miss Lavery she obtained an introduction to the great Sir
William. He owned a group of popular provincial newspapers, and was most
encouraging. Sir William had often said to himself:

"What can I do for God who has done so much for me?" It seemed only
fair.

He asked her down to his "little place in Hampshire," to talk plans over.
The "little place," it turned out, ran to forty bedrooms, and was
surrounded by three hundred acres of park. God had evidently done his
bit quite handsomely.

It was in a secluded corner of the park that Sir William had gone down
upon one knee and gallantly kissed her hand. His idea was that if she
could regard herself as his "Dear Lady," and allow him the honour and
privilege of being her "True Knight," that, between them, they might
accomplish something really useful. There had been some difficulty about
his getting up again, Sir William being an elderly gentleman subject to
rheumatism, and Joan had had to expend no small amount of muscular effort
in assisting him; so that the episode which should have been symbolical
ended by leaving them both red and breathless.

He referred to the matter again the same evening in the library while
Lady William slept peacefully in the blue drawing-room; but as it
appeared necessary that the compact should be sealed by a knightly kiss
Joan had failed to ratify it.

She blamed herself on her way home. The poor old gentleman could easily
have been kept in his place. The suffering of an occasional harmless
caress would have purchased for her power and opportunity. Had it not
been somewhat selfish of her? Should she write to him--see him again?

She knew that she never would. It was something apart from her reason.
It would not even listen to her. It bade or forbade as if one were a
child without any right to a will of one's own. It was decidedly
exasperating.

There were others. There were the editors who frankly told her that the
business of a newspaper was to write what its customers wanted to read;
and that the public, so far as they could judge, was just about fed up
with plans for New Jerusalems at their expense. And the editors who were
prepared to take up any number of reforms, insisting only that they
should be new and original and promise popularity