ng.

'George is a different man since he's found his vocation,' Mrs.
Fox-Moore insisted. 'You read it in his face.'

'Oh, if all you mean is that _he's_ happier, why not? He's able to look
on himself as a benefactor. He's tasting the intoxication of the King
among Beggars.'

'You are grossly unfair, Vida.'

'So he thinks when I challenge him: "What good, what earthly good, is
all this unless an anodyne--for you--is good?"'

'It seems to me a very real good that George Nuneaton and his kind
should go into the dark places and brighten hopeless lives with a little
Christian kindness--sometimes with a little timely counsel.'

'Yes, yes,' said the voice by the fire; 'and a little good music--don't
forget the good music.'

'An object-lesson in practical religion, isn't that something?'

'Practical! Good Heaven! A handful of complacent, expensively educated
young people playing at reform. The poor wanting work, wanting decent
housing--wanting _bread_--and offered a little cultivated
companionship.'

'Vida, what have you been reading?'

'Reading? I've been visiting George at his Settlement. I've been
intruding myself on the privacy of the poor once a week with you--and
I'm done with it! Personally I don't get enough out of it to reconcile
me to their getting so little.'

'You're burning,' observed the toneless voice from the head of the
table.

'Yes, I believe I was a little hot,' Vida laughed as she drew her
smoking skirt away from the fire. But she still stood close to the
cheerful blaze, one foot on the fender, the green cloth skirt drawn up,
leaving the more delicate fabric of her silk petticoat to meet the fiery
ordeal. 'If it annoys you to hear me say that's my view of charity, why,
don't make me talk about it;' but the face she turned for an instant
over her shoulder was far gentler than her words. 'And don't in
future'--she was again looking down into the fire, and she spoke slowly
as one who delivers a reluctant ultimatum--'don't ask me to help, except
with money. _That_ doesn't cost so much.'

'I am disappointed.' Nothing further, but the sound of a chair moved
back, eloquent somehow of a discouragement deeper than words conveyed.

Vida turned swiftly, and, coming back to her sister, laid an arm about
her shoulder.

'I'm a perfect monster! But you know, my dear, you rather goaded me into
saying all this by looking such a martyr when I've tried to get out of
going----'

'Very well, I won't ask you