s that mean to your
own mind?"

"I'll try to tell you. You know at present there are only the buildings
for the Works, the branch track and engine sheds, and the few rows of
uncomfortable cottages for the families of the men. There is no school,
no church, no library, no meeting-place of any kind, except the grocery
store and saloon; and those bare, staring rows of mean houses, just
alike, are not homes in any sense of the word. I want to add all such
comforts--no, I call them necessities--and more."

"More? As what, for instance?"

"Well,"--she drew a long breath and settled back in her chair with a
nestling movement that made the hard man of business feel a certain
fatherly yearning towards her, and at last said slowly, "I can't quite
explain to you how I have been led to it, but this thought has become
very plain to me--that every real need of humanity must (if this world
be the work of a perfect Being) have its certain fulfilment. Most people
think the fulfilment should only be looked for in another and better
world. I think it might, and ought, to come often in this, and that we
alone are to blame that it does not."

"Wait! Let me more fully understand. You think every need--what kind of
needs?"

"All kinds. Needs of body, mind, and soul."

"You think they can be fully gratified here?"

"I think they might be. I believe there is no reason, except our own
ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, and greed, that keeps them from being
gratified here and now."

"But child--that would be Heaven!"

"Very like it--yes. And why shouldn't we have Heaven here, sir? God made
this world and pronounced it good. Would the Perfect One make a broken
circle, a chain with missing links, a desire without its gratification?
That would be incomplete workmanship. When either my body or my soul
calls out for anything whatsoever, somewhere there is that thing
awaiting the desire. Why relegate it to another world? There must be
complete circles here, or this world is not good."

"But, my dear girl, these are rather abstruse questions for your little
head."

"I did not think them out, Mr. Barrington. They grew out
of--circumstances--and some one a good deal wiser than I made me
understand them. But they grew to stay, and I can't get rid of them.
That is one of the thoughts, ideas--what you will, and this is the
other. A man can do little alone, but men can do anything working
together in perfect sympathy."

"Oh, co-operation--yes!"