ss Brent reflected. "I don't know much about the constitution of
companies--but I suppose Mrs. Westmore doesn't unite all the offices in
her own person. Is there no one to stand between Truscomb and the
operatives?"

"Oh, the company, on paper, shows the usual official hierarchy. Richard
Westmore, of course, was president, and since his death the former
treasurer--Halford Gaines--has replaced him, and his son, Westmore
Gaines, has been appointed treasurer. You can see by the names that it's
all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss Westmore, and
represents the clan at Hanaford--leads society, and keeps up the social
credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines kept strictly to
his special business, and always refused to interfere between Truscomb
and the operatives. As president he will probably follow the same
policy, the more so as it fits in with his inherited respect for the
_status quo_, and his blissful ignorance of economics."

"And the new treasurer--young Gaines? Is there no hope of his breaking
away from the family tradition?"

"Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford
and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New
Yorker. So far he hasn't been here much, except for the quarterly
meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin--you perceive
that Westmore is a nest of nepotism."

Miss Brent's work among the poor had developed her interest in social
problems, and she followed these details attentively.

"Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore's
coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any one."

"She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her husband was really
the whole company. The official cousins hold only a few shares apiece."

"Perhaps, then, her visit will open her eyes. Who knows but poor
Dillon's case may help others--prove a beautiful dispensation, as Mrs.
Ogan would say?"

"It does come terribly pat as an illustration of some of the abuses I
want to have remedied. The difficulty will be to get the lady's ear.
That's her house we're coming to, by the way."

An electric street-lamp irradiated the leafless trees and stone
gate-posts of the building before them. Though gardens extended behind
it, the house stood so near the pavement that only two short flights of
steps intervened between the gate-posts and the portico. Light shone
from every window of the pompous rusticated