interested
in what he was doing. He had ambition, he thought everything of that
mill, he'd made it. I don't know why I loved him, it wasn't because he
was fine, like Mr. Insall, but he was strong and brave, and he needed me
and just took me."

"One never knows!" Augusta Maturity murmured.

"I went back that night to tell him I'd marry him--and he'd gone. Then I
came to you, to the soup kitchen. I didn't mean to bother you, I've never
quite understood how I got there. I don't care so much what happens to
me, now that I've told you," Janet added. "It was mean, not to tell you,
but I'd never had anything like this--what you were giving me--and I
wanted all I could get."

"I'm thankful you did come to us!" Augusta Maturin managed to reply.

"You mean--?" Janet exclaimed.

"I mean, that we who have been more--fortunate don't look at these things
quite as we used to, that the world is less censorious, is growing to
understand situations it formerly condemned. And--I don't know what kind
of a monster you supposed me to be, Janet."

"Oh, Mrs. Maturin!"

"I mean that I'm a woman, too, my dear, although my life has been
sheltered. Otherwise, what has happened to you might have happened to me.
And besides, I am what is called unconventional, I have little theories
of my own about life, and now that you have told me everything I
understand you and love you even more than I did before."

Save that her breath came fast, Janet lay still against the cushions of
the armchair. She was striving to grasp the momentous and unlooked-for
fact of her friend's unchanged attitude. Then she asked:--"Mrs. Maturin,
do you believe in God?"

Augusta Maturin was startled by the question. "I like to think of Him as
light, Janet, and that we are plants seeking to grow toward Him--no
matter from what dark crevice we may spring. Even in our mistakes and
sins we are seeking Him, for these are ignorances, and as the world
learns more, we shall know Him better and better. It is natural to long
for happiness, and happiness is self-realization, and self-realization is
knowledge and light."

"That is beautiful," said Janet at length.

"It is all we can know about God," said Mrs. Maturin, "but it is enough."
She had been thinking rapidly. "And now," she went on, "we shall have to
consider what is to be done. I don't pretend that the future will be
easy, but it will not be nearly as hard for you as it might have been,
since I am your friend, and I d