hat
the girls hated to sew on the ugly gray ginghams. But sometimes Julia
found her giving out candy and five-cent pieces, without regard for the
girls' merits and achievements, for the mere pleasure of hearing their
thanks.

Or sometimes, when for any reason the attendance upon the sewing classes
was poor, Miss Toland bought herself a new blank book, dated it
fiercely, and proceeded to ransack the neighbourhood for children in a
house-to-house canvass. Julia and she would take a car into Mission
Street, eat their dinner at the Colonial dining-room, where all sorts
of wholesome dairy dishes were consumed by hungry hundreds every night,
and where a white-clad man turned batter cakes in the window.

"They do that everywhere in New York," said Miss Toland, thereby
thrilling Julia. "What, d'you like New York?" asked the older woman.

"I've never seen it!" Julia breathed.

"Well, some day we'll go on--study methods there. Spring's the time,"
said Miss Toland, raising gold-rimmed eyeglasses to study the grimy and
spotted menu. "Spring afternoons on the Avenue, or driving in the
Park--it's quite wonderful! I see they have chicken pie specially
starred, thirty-five cents; shall we try that?"

After the meal the canvassing began, Miss Toland doing all the talking,
while Julia stared about the small, stuffy interiors, and smiled at the
babies and old women. Miss Toland jotted down in her book all the
details she gathered in each house, and only stopped in her quest when
the hour and the darkened houses reminded her that the evening was
flying.

This might keep up every free evening for two weeks; it would end as
suddenly as it began, and Miss Toland enter upon a lazy and luxurious
phase. She would spend whole mornings and even afternoons in bed,
reading and dozing, and fresh from a hot bath at four o'clock, would
summon her assistant and make a suggestion or two.

"Julia, suppose we go down to the Palace for tea?"

Julia, standing gravely in the doorway, considered.

"The girls won't be gone for another hour, Miss Toland!"

"The--Oh, the girls, to be sure. Of course. Who else is there, Julia?"

"Miss Parker and Miss Chetwynde. And Mrs. Forbes Foster was here for a
little while."

Miss Toland, drawing on silk stockings, would make a grimace.

"What did you tell them?"

"Sick headache."

"Oh, yes, quite right! Well, get through out there, and we'll go
somewhere."

The assistant, about to depart, would hesitate: