ple wondered at and
failed to comprehend their friendship. The mild, nervous little Oxonian
barely reached Derrick's shoulder; his finely cut face was singularly
feminine and innocent; the mild eyes beaming from behind his small
spectacles had an absent, dreamy look. One could not fail to see at
the first glance, that this refined, restless, conscientious little
gentleman was hardly the person to cope successfully with Riggan.
Derrick strode by his side like a young son of Anak--brains and muscle
evenly balanced and fully developed.

He turned his head over his shoulder to look at Joan Lowrie once again.

"That girl," said Grace, "has worked at the pit's mouth from her
childhood; her mother was a pit girl until she died--of hard work,
privation and ill treatment. Her father is a collier and lives as most
of them do--drinking, rioting, fighting. Their home is such a home as
you have seen dozens of since you came here; the girl could not better
it if she tried, and would not know how to begin if she felt inclined.
She has borne, they tell me, such treatment as would have killed most
women. She has been beaten, bruised, felled to the earth by this father
of hers, who is said to be a perfect fiend in his cups. And yet she
holds to her place in their wretched hovel, and makes herself a slave
to the fellow with a dogged, stubborn determination. What can I do with
such a case as that, Derrick?"

"You have tried to make friends with the girl?" said Derrick.

Grace colored sensitively.

"There is not a man, woman or child in the parish," he answered, "with
whom I have not conscientiously tried to make friends, and there
is scarcely one, I think, with whom I have succeeded. Why can I not
succeed? Why do I always fail? The fault must be with myself----"

"A mistake that at the outset," interposed Derrick. "There is no
'fault' in the matter; there is simply misfortune. Your parishioners are
so unfortunate as not to be able to understand you, and on your part you
are so unfortunate as to fail at first to place yourself on the right
footing with them. I say 'at first' you observe. Give yourself time,
Grace, and give them time too."

"Thank you," said the Reverend Paul. "But speaking of this girl--'That
lass o' Lowrie's,' as she is always called--Joan I believe her name is.
Joan Lowrie is, I can assure you, a weight upon me. I cannot help her
and I cannot rid my mind of her. She stands apart from her fellows. She
has most of t