r rising. 'We want a place
for disposing of the destitute children that swarm in this district.'

'Oh, show me!' cried Phoebe. 'Is it to be at that place in Cicely Row?'

'I hope so.'

The stiff sheets were unrolled, the designs explained. There was to be a
range of buildings round a court, consisting of day-schools, a home for
orphans, a _creche_ for infants, a reading-room for adults, and
apartments for the clergy of the Church which was to form one side of the
quadrangle. Sir Bevil was much interested, and made useful criticisms.
'But,' he objected, 'what is the use of building new churches in the
City, when there is no filling those you have?'

'St. Wulstan's is better filled than formerly,' said Robert. 'The pew
system is the chief enemy there; but even without that, it would not hold
a tenth part of the Whittingtonian population, would they come to it,
which they will not. The Church must come to them, and with special
services at their own times. They need an absolute mission, on entirely
different terms from the Woolstone quarter.'

'And are you about to head the mission?'

'To endeavour to take a share in it.'

'And who is to be at the cost of this?' pursued Sir Bevil. 'Have you a
subscription list?'

Robert coloured again as he answered, 'Why, no; we can do without that so
far.'

Phoebe understood, and her face must have revealed the truth to Sir
Bevil, for laying his hand on Robert's arm, he said, 'My good fellow, you
don't mean that you are answerable for all this?'

'You know I have something of my own.'

'You will not leave much of it at this rate. How about the endowment?'

'I shall live upon the endowment.'

'Have you considered? You will be tied to this place for ever.'

'That is one of my objects,' replied Robert, and in reply to a look of
astonished interrogation, 'myself and all that is mine would be far too
little to atone for a fraction of the evil that our house is every day
perpetrating here.'

'I should hate the business myself,' said the baronet; 'but don't you see
it in a strong light?'

'Every hour I spend here shows me that I do not see it strongly enough.'

And there followed some appalling instances of the effects of the
multiplicity of gin-palaces, things that it well-nigh broke Robert's
heart to witness, absorbed as he was in the novelty of his work, fresh in
feeling, and never able to divest himself of a sense of being a sharer in
the guilt and ruin.

Si