lt of some wrongdoing of our own in a
previous incarnation. Mary Mason herself is an instance."

"What's the matter with her?"

"Poor girl! She's been knocked from pillar to post all her days. She
hasn't an idea who her parents are, and there isn't a creature in the
world she has any claim upon. She must have gone very far astray _last
time_ to have been brought into the world again with such
disadvantages."

"It appears to me she has a great many advantages--lovely blue eyes,
good teeth, the fashionable golden shade of hair, and the prettiest
complexion I've seen for many a day."

"Don't be provoking, Dave! The poor little thing has the marks of some
of her beatings on her yet. The Ferguson family were the first who ever
treated her decently, or paid her any wages."

"Why did they drop her?"

"One of our Committee took it upon herself to write and ask them. They
replied that the girl was of perfectly good character, so far as they
knew, but she fell so ridiculously in love with Frank Ferguson, their
eldest son, that she was making a nuisance of herself, and so they had
to let her go."

I laughed.

"There are generally two sides to that kind of story."

"At the meeting of the trustees to-morrow it is to be decided what's to
be done with her, because she says she doesn't want to go to school any
more. She's never had much of a chance before to learn anything, and
she's in a class with little bits of girls, and she doesn't like
it--says she'd rather go to work to earn her own living."

Belle came home from that meeting with her face ablaze with righteous
wrath. Her hands trembled so much over the teacups at our evening meal
that even sixteen year old Watty, our eldest son, remarked it.

"What's the matter with _mamma_? Her trolley's off."

I knew there was trouble in the wind, so I fortified myself with a good
supper and read my paper at the same time, to leave myself free for what
was to follow. The children study their lessons in the back end of the
nursery, and I therefore forbore to take up my usual position upon the
sofa, but withdrew to the parlor with my pipe.

Presently my wife followed me, nearly walking over the furniture in her
excitement.

"Go on, Belle; out with it!"

"You will listen, will you, seriously?"

"Certainly, mawm. I never had any sort of an objection to your making a
scavenger barrel of me, so go ahead."

"Oh, these benevolent women, Dave! Any one of them alone is as
good-he