gh for me," said he; "but are you sure I'm not
trespassing?"

"You mean the advertisement? Oh, that was just because we had some
rather awful people last year, and we couldn't get away from them, and
mother wanted to be quite safe; but, of course, you're different. We
like you very much, what we've seen of you." This straightforward
compliment somehow pleased him less than it might have done. "The other
people were--well, he was a butterman. I believe he called himself an
artist."

"Do you mean that you do not like persons who are in trade," he asked,
thinking of the tobacconist's assistant.

"Of course I don't mean that," she said; "why, I'm a Socialist!
Butterman just means a person without manners or ideals. But I do like
working people better than shoppy people, though I know it's wrong."

"How can an involuntary liking or disliking be wrong?" he asked.

"It's snobbish, don't you think? We ought to like people for what they
are, not for what they have, or what they work at."

"If you weren't so pretty, and hadn't that delightful air of having just
embraced the Social Gospel, you'd be a prig," he said to himself. To her
he said: "Roughly speaking, don't you think the conventional
classifications correspond fairly well with the real ones?"

"No," she answered roundly.

And when the mother returned, weary from her calls, she found her tenant
and her daughter still discussing the problems of good and evil, of
heredity and environment, of social inequalities and the injustice of
the world. The girl fought for her views, and she fought fairly, if
fiercely. It was the first of many such fights. When he had gone the
mother protested.

"Dearest," said the girl, "I can't help it! I must live my own life, as
people say in plays. After all, I'm twenty-six. I've always talked to
people if I liked them--even strangers in railway carriages. And people
aren't wild beasts, you know: everything is always all right. And this
man can talk; he knows about things. And he's a gentleman. That ought to
satisfy you--that and his references. Don't worry, there's a darling.
Just be nice to him yourself. He's simply a godsend in a place like
this."

"He'll fall in love with you, Celia," said the mother warningly.

"Not he!" said the daughter. But the mother was right.

Living alone in the queer little cottage, the world, his accustomed
life, the Brydges woman, all seemed very far away. Miss Sheepmarsh was
very near. Her frank enj