member took a severely bitten pen from between her lips, and
said: "Now you mention it, I think I'll go down there again for the
week-end. I can pawn my ear-rings."

Nobody of course took any notice of her, yet in a way her remark was
logical. For that singing Spring that had for a moment trespassed in the
room had reminded her of very familiar things, and for a few seconds she
had stood upon a beloved hill, and had looked down between beech trees
on a far valley, like a promised land; and had seen in the valley a pale
river and a dark town, like milk and honey.

As for Miss Ford, she had become rather white. Although the blind had
now pulled itself down, and dismissed April, Miss Ford continued to look
at the window. But she cleared her throat and said hoarsely: "Will you
kindly answer my questions? I asked you what your trade was."

"It's too dretful of me to interrupt," said Lady Arabel suddenly. "But,
do you know, Meta, I feel we are wasting this committee's time. This
young person needs no assistance from us." She turned to the Stranger,
and added: "My dear, I am dretfully ashamed. You must meet my son
Rrchud.... My son Rrchud knows...."

She burst into tears.

The Stranger took her hand.

"I should like awfully to meet Rrchud, and to get to know you better,"
she said. She grew very red. "I say, I should be awfully pleased if you
would call me Angela."

It wasn't her name, but she had noticed that something of this sort is
always said when people become motherly and cry.

Then she went away.

"Lawdy," said the Mayor. "I didn't expect she'd go out by the door,
somehow. Look--she's left some sort of hardware over there in the
corner."

It was a broomstick.

CHAPTER II

THE COMMITTEE COMES TO MAGIC

I don't suppose for a moment that you know Mitten Island: it is a
difficult place to get to; you have to change 'buses seven times, going
from Kensington, and you have to cross the river by means of a ferry. On
Mitten Island there is a model village, consisting of several hundred
houses, two churches, and one shop.

It was the sixth member who discovered, after the committee meeting,
that the address on the forsaken broomstick's collar was: Number 100
Beautiful Way, Mitten Island, London.

The sixth member, although she was a member of committees, was neither a
real expert in, nor a real lover of, Doing Good. In Doing Good, I think,
we have got into bad habits. We try in groups to do good to th