f workmanship,"
said the apostle, both elbows on the table after the manner of her kind,
"but it is a misfortune to the cause of suffering humanity--to _our_
cause--when the books which pretend to set forth certain phases of its
existence are written by persons entirely ignorant of the life they
describe."

"How true!" said Sybell. "I have often thought it, but I never could put
it into words as you do. Oh! how I agree with you and Mr. Harvey! As I
often say to Hester, 'How can you describe anything if you don't go
anywhere or see anything? I can't give you my experience. No one can.' I
said that to her only a month ago, when she refused to come up to London
with me."

Rachel's white face and neck had taken on them the pink transparent
color that generally dwelt only in the curves of her small ears.

"Why do you think Miss Gresley is ignorant of the life she describes?"
she said, addressing the apostle.

The author and the apostle both opened their mouths at the same moment,
only to register a second triumph of the female tongue.

Miss Barker was in her element. The whole table was listening. She
shrugged her orange-velvet shoulders.

"Those who have cast in their lot with the poor," she said,
sententiously, "would recognize at once the impossibility of Miss
Gresley's characters and situations."

"To me they seem real," said Rachel.

"Ah, my dear Miss West, you will excuse me, but a young lady like
yourself, nursed in the lap of luxury, can hardly be expected to look at
life with the same eyes as a poor waif like myself, who has penetrated
to the very core of the city, and who has heard the stifled sigh of a
vast perishing humanity."

"I lived in the midst of it for six years," said Rachel. "I did not cast
in my lot with the poor, for I was one of them, and earned my bread
among them. Miss Gresley's book may not be palatable in some respects,
the district visitor and the woman missionary are certainly treated with
harshness, but, as far as my experience goes, _The Idyll_ is a true word
from first to last."

There was in Rachel's voice a restrained force that vaguely stirred all
the occupants of the room. Every one looked at her, and for a moment no
one spoke. She became quite colorless.

"Very striking. Just what I should have said in her place," said Sybell
to herself. "I will ask her again."

"I can hear it raining," said Doll's voice from the head of the table to
the company in general. "If it will on