in the
world and struggling to make their living. We are all together, and
have enough money to keep us from actual want, but I can imagine how
_awful_ it must be for girls who are all alone, with no one to help them
if they fall ill; whose lives are one long, colourless struggle, with
never a ray of brightness or pleasure from Monday morning until Saturday
night. Could you not think of some way of helping them? What could you
do? I know; I have it! There is that sweet little lodge with no one
living in it but old George and his wife, and she was lamenting to me
only yesterday that her daughters were married, and there were no young
folks left in the house. Why should you not furnish two rooms upstairs,
and invite poor shop assistants and girl-clerks to come down for their
holidays, two at a time, so that they would be companions for each
other? It would be so easy to manage, for you need not think of
expense; and Mrs Moss would wait upon them, while you provided their
amusements. You could go round with Pipeclay and take them out for
drives; you could lend them books and papers, and have them up to the
house to tea. They would confide their joys and troubles to you, and
tell you about their `friends,' and write letters to you when they went
home. When they married, you could help to provide the trousseaux. And
when the first little girls were born they would be called after you,
and you would knit their socks. They would be brought up to love you
because you had been kind to their mothers, and it would be the dream of
their lives to be asked down to see all the places of which they had
heard so much. In a dozen homes all over the country people would be
blessing you, and looking upon you as the good fairy who had brought
them health and happiness. Oh Avice, you lucky girl! What would I give
to have such a chance? I would begin to-morrow--to-day--this very
afternoon!"

"Well," said Avice reflectively--"well!" It was not in her nature to be
enthusiastic like her cousin, but she smiled as if the idea found favour
in her sight, and her dull eyes brightened. "It _does_ sound nice. I
suppose I could do it if I liked. Mother wouldn't mind, and Mrs Moss
would be delighted. She is one of those women who are never so happy as
when they are nursing some one; and she would coddle the girls from
morning till night, and give them beaten-up eggs and black-currant Jelly
for their throats, and her celebrated cough