discriminate alms, that she was being taken in. This infringement of
the rules drove the Vicar to exasperation. His whole heart was in his
work, and Henrietta's disloyalty hindered him at every turn.

"Can't she be asked to give up meddling in the parish?" he said to his
wife.

"No dear, you know she can't, and she is very generous, even if she is
tiresome. She has often been very helpful to you. You ought to be
grateful."

"I'm not grateful," he said, striding about the room; "and then she is
so petty, always these absurd squabbles. She hasn't got a spark of love
for God or man. That's at the root of it all. We don't want a person of
that sort here. If she cared about the people, even if she did pauperize
them, I might think her a fool, but I could respect her; but you know
she doesn't care for a soul but herself."

"I don't think it is that, but she's in great trouble, I'm sure she is.
When you were preaching about sorrow last Sunday, I saw her eyes were
filled with tears."

"Were they?" he said, "I'm sorry. But look here, dear, I don't think
this sort of work ought to be used as a soothing syrup, or as a
rubbish-shoot for loafers, who don't know what else to do. If people
aren't doing it because they think it's the greatest privilege in the
world to be allowed to do it, I can't see that they do much good."

"I think you're too hard on her."

"Am I? I expect I am. I know I'm fagged to death. She gives Mrs.
Wilkins pounds on the sly, which the old lady's been transforming into
gin, and then when I explain the circumstances and implore her to leave
well alone, she talks my head off with a torrent of incoherent
statements, which have nothing whatever to do with the point."

It certainly was true that Henrietta did not do much good, and no one
was more aware of this than herself. She stood outside the community,
and looked in at them like a hungry beggar at a feast. How she envied
their happiness, but she did not feel that she was, or ever could be, a
partaker with them. As months passed on, she drew no nearer to them.
They were all so busy, so strong in their union with one another, they
did not seem to have time to stretch out a friendly hand to one who was
at least as much in need of it as Mrs. Wilkins.

The lady she lived with found her trying. "A very trying person" was the
phrase that went the round about her, "always criticizing small
arrangements about the meals and the housekeeping," for Henrietta could