May, is to
get these young mothers and teach them at least how to make and mend
their clothes. It isn't war work. It's 'after the war' work. Those young
mothers who have done factory work, know nothing about anything. We must
get something into their noddles. Two or three ladies will be there this
morning, and we shall get all the work ready for the next club
meeting--mothers and babies. Babies are entertained in a separate room.
We have tea and one half-hour's reading; the rest of the time gossip.
Oh, how they do talk!"

"How much do you expect to get from the Sale of work to-day for your
club?" asked May, avoiding the Warden's eye when he put out his hand to
her for the cup of coffee that she was passing him.

"Not very much," said Lady Dashwood, "but enough, I hope."

A moment later and Lady Dashwood was opening her letters.

"Mr. Boreham," she remarked suddenly, "is bringing Mrs. Potten in to the
Sale. He is the last person I should expect to meet at a Sale of work in
aid of a mother's club."

The Warden raised his eyes and apparently addressed the coffee-pot
across the table.

"Boreham is usually suspicious of anything that is organised by what he
calls 'respectable people.'" Then he looked round at May Dashwood for
the first time. The reason why Boreham was going to drive Mrs. Potten in
to the Sale of work was obvious both to him and to Lady Dashwood. May
did not meet the Warden's eye, though she was tinglingly conscious that
they rested on her face.

"I object," she said, imitating Boreham's voice, "not only to the
respectable members of the British public, but to the British public in
general. I am irritated with and express my animosity to the people
around me with frankness and courage. But I have no inimical feelings
towards people whom I have never met. Them I respect and love. Their
institutions, of which I know nothing, I honour."

The Warden's lips parted with a smile, as if the smile was wrung from
him, but May did not smile. She was still making her effort, and was
looking down into her plate, her eyebrows very much raised, as if she
was contemplating there the portrait of somebody with compassionate
interest.

Lady Dashwood saw the Warden's smile, and saw him lean forward to look
at the downcast face of May, as if to note every detail of it.

Well into the early morning Lady Dashwood had lain awake thinking, and
listening mechanically to the gentle breathing of the girl beside her,
and th