as well.'

'I am not fitted to give advice in such a matter.'

'Mr. Falconer!'

'I assure you I am not. I subscribe to no society myself--not one.'

'Excuse me, but I can hardly believe the rumours I hear of you--people
will talk, you know--are all inventions. They say you are for ever
burrowing amongst the poor. Excuse the phrase.'

'I excuse or accept it, whichever you please. Whatever I do, I am my own
steward.'

'Then you are just the person to help me! I have a fortune, not very
limited, at my own disposal: a gentleman who is his own steward, would
find his labours merely facilitated by administering for another as
well--such labours, I mean.'

'I must beg to be excused, Lady Georgina. I am accountable only for my
own, and of that I have quite as much as I can properly manage. It
is far more difficult to use money for others than to spend it for
yourself.'

'Ah!' said Lady Georgina, thoughtfully, and cast an involuntary glance
round the untidy room, with its horse-hair furniture, its ragged array
of books on the wall, its side-table littered with pamphlets he never
read, with papers he never printed, with pipes he smoked by chance
turns. He saw the glance and understood it.

'I am accustomed,' he said, 'to be in such sad places for human beings
to live in, that I sometimes think even this dingy old room an absolute
palace of comfort.--But,' he added, checking himself, as it were, 'I
do not see in the least how your proposal would facilitate an answer to
your question.'

'You seem hardly inclined to do me justice,' said Lady Georgina, with,
for the first time, a perceptible, though slight shadow crossing the
disc of her resolution. 'I only meant it,' she went on, 'as a step
towards a further proposal, which I think you will allow looks at least
in the direction you have been indicating.'

She paused.

'May I beg of you to state the proposal?' said Falconer.

But Lady Georgina was apparently in some little difficulty as to the
proper form in which to express her object. At last it appeared in the
cloak of a question.

'Do you require no assistance in your efforts for the elevation of the
lower classes?' she asked.

'I don't make any such efforts,' said Falconer.

Some of my lady-readers will probably be remarking to themselves, 'How
disagreeable of him! I can't endure the man.' If they knew how Falconer
had to beware of the forwardness and annoyance of well-meaning women,
they would not dislike