more properly dubbed the "nursery," for it is Liberty
Hall for the youngsters. Two rooms have been knocked into one to
accommodate their dolls' houses, bookshelves, toys, and printing
machines. Belle had the whole side torn out of the house to build an
open fire-place, on purpose to burn slabs, over which the children roast
pop-corn to their hearts' content.

"A body wad think," said my mother one cold night five or six years ago,
when I lay on the sofa, trying to send my weariness off in smoke, "A
body wad think there had been nae cherritable wark dune in the toon ava,
till they theossiphies set aboot it. If yer provost and baillies lookit
efter things as they ocht, there wad be a dacent puirs-house for the
idignant folk, an' a wheen daft leddies like Eesabel needna gang roun'
speirin' at yon infeedels for their siller tae build a hoose o' refuse."

"There is a county poorhouse, mother, but it doesn't happen to be
located in this city, and they won't take in anybody there that hasn't
been a resident of the county for a certain time."

"Aweel! there's plenty o' kirks, though ye never darken the door o' ane.
Do they no' leuk efter their ain puir folk?"

"Yes; but after nobody else's. This House of Refuge is to be
non-sectarian, non-religious, humanitarian, in the broadest sense of the
term. Ah! There's Belle now," and I gave a sigh of relief as I heard my
wife's latch-key in the front door.

She came in with an out-of-door breeze, her dark face glowing from the
wintry wind, flakes of newly fallen snow resting like diamonds upon her
prematurely white hair, and her brown eyes sparkling with the animation
of twenty summers rather than of forty-two.

"Children all gone to bed? That's right! Don't go, mother! I'm sure
you'll like to hear about the House of Refuge. We've got it fixed at
last! Those rich old lumbermen that won't give a cent to a church, or
any charity connected with one, have gone to the bottom of their pockets
this time. Fancy Peter Wood, Dave--five hundred dollars! And Jeff
Henderson, five hundred. I have the list in my bag. Like to see it?"

"No' the nicht, thenk ye," said my mother stiffly, but I added:

"Hand it over to me, and I'll put it in to-morrow's _Echo_. That's what
they want."

"Nothing of the kind, you old cynic! I shan't tell you another thing
about it." But still she went on: "We've taken the old Laurence house on
the corner of Garfield Avenue and Pine Street, and it's to be fitted up