noisseur in antiquities
through the rooms whose delights he had perfectly foreseen, he assured
her, from the modelling of the front porch; her utter and instantaneous
refusal to consider for a second his proposal to lodge a stranger in
half of her father's house; and the naive and conscientious struggle
with her principles when, with a logic none the less forcible because
it was so gracefully developed, he convinced her that her plain duty lay
along the lines of his choice.

For as a philanthropist what could she do? Here were placed in her hands
means she could not in conscience overlook. Rapidly translating his
dollars into converts, he juggled them before her dazzled eyes; he
even hinted delicately at Duty, with that exact conception of the
requirements of the stern daughter felt by none so keenly as those who
systematically avoid her.

His good genius prompted him to refer casually to soup-kitchens.
Now soup-kitchens were the delight of Miss Gould's heart; toward the
establishment of a soup-kitchen she had looked since the day when her
father's death had left her the double legacy of his worldly goods and
his unworldly philanthropy.

Visions of dozens of Bacchic revellers, riotous no more, but seated
temperately each before his steaming bowl, rose to her delighted eyes;
she saw in fancy the daughters and nieces of the reformed in smiles and
white aprons ladling the nutritious and attractive compound, earning
thus an honest wage; she saw a neatly balanced account-book and a
triumphant report; she saw herself the respected and deprecatory idol of
a millennial village. She wavered, hesitated, and was lost.

That very evening saw the establishment of a second menage in the north
side of the house, and though a swift regret chilled her manner for
weeks, she found herself little by little growing interested in her
lodger, and conscious of an increasing desire to benefit him, an
irritated longing to influence him for good, to turn him from the
butterfly whims of a pretended invalid to an appreciation of the
responsibilities of life.

For in all her well-ordered forty years Miss Gould had never seen so
indolent, so capricious, so irresponsible a person. That a man of easy
means, fine education, sufficient health, and gray hair should have
nothing better to do than collect willow-ware and fire-irons, read the
magazines, play the piano, and stroll about in the sun seemed to her
nothing less than horrible.

Each day th