some very useful religious notions, and I work it in on these.'

From the housekeeper, a friend of her youth, Helen learned that in the
village Mr. Kane's ministrations to Jim Betts were regarded with
surprise, yet not without admiration. He was supposed to be some strange
sort of foreign clergyman, not to be placed in any recognisable
category. 'He's a very kind gentleman, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Fielding.

Mr. Kane was fond, Helen also observed, of entering into conversation
with the servants. The butler's political views--which were guarded--he
determinedly pursued, undeterred by Baines's cautious and deferential
retreats. He considered the footman as a potential friend, whatever the
footman might consider him. Their common manhood, in Franklin's eyes,
entirely outweighed the slight, extraneous accidents of fortune--nay,
these differences gave an additional interest. The footman had, no
doubt, a point of view novel and valuable, if one could get at it.
Franklin did not attempt to get at it by any method subversive of order
or interfering with Thomas's duties; he observed all the conventions
demanded by varying function. But Helen, strolling one morning before
breakfast outside the dining-room windows, heard within and paused to
listen to Mr. Kane's monotonous and slightly nasal tones as he shared
the morning news with Thomas, who, with an air of bewildered if obedient
attention, continued his avocations between the sideboard and the
breakfast-table.

'Now I should say,' Franklin remarked, 'that something of that
sort--Germany's doing wonders with it--could be worked here in England
if you set yourselves to it.'

'Yes, sir,' said Thomas.

'Berlin has eliminated the slums, you know,' said Franklin, looking
thoughtfully at Thomas over the top of the paper. 'What do you feel
about it, all of you over here? It's a big question, you know, that of
the housing of the poor.'

'Well, I can't say, sir,' said Thomas, compelled to a guarded opinion.
'Things do look black for the lower horders.'

'You're right, Thomas; and things will go on looking black for helpless
people until they determine to help themselves, or until people who
aren't helpless--like you and me--determine they shan't be so black.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Talk it over, you know. Get your friends interested in it. It's a
mighty big subject, of course, that of the State and its poor, but it's
wonderful what can be done by personal initiative.'

Helen entered at