o Joan a comically frightened face, with round,
staring eyes and an open mouth.

"What is it you want me to do?" she faltered

"I want you to be just yourself," said Joan; "a kind, good woman of the
people, who will win their respect, and set them an example." She moved
across and seating herself on the arm of Mrs. Phillips's chair, touched
lightly with her hand the flaxen hair and the rouged cheek. "I want you
to get rid of all this," she whispered. "It isn't worthy of you. Leave
it to the silly dolls and the bad women."

There was a long silence. Joan felt the tears trickling between her
fingers.

"You haven't seen me," came at last in a thin, broken voice.

Joan bent down and kissed her. "Let's try it," she whispered.

A little choking sound was the only answer. But the woman rose and, Joan
following, they stole upstairs into the bedroom and Mrs. Phillips turned
the key.

It took a long time, and Joan, seated on the bed, remembered a night when
she had taken a trapped mouse (if only he had been a quiet mouse!) into
the bathroom and had waited while it drowned. It was finished at last,
and Mrs Phillips stood revealed with her hair down, showing streaks of
dingy brown.

Joan tried to enthuse; but the words came haltingly. She suggested to
Joan a candle that some wind had suddenly blown out. The paint and
powder had been obvious, but at least it had given her the mask of youth.
She looked old and withered. The life seemed to have gone out of her.

"You see, dear, I began when I was young," she explained; "and he has
always seen me the same. I don't think I could live like this."

The painted doll that the child fancied! the paint washed off and the
golden hair all turned to drab? Could one be sure of "getting used to
it," of "liking it better?" And the poor bewildered doll itself! How
could one expect to make of it a statue: "The Woman of the People." One
could only bruise it.

It ended in Joan's promising to introduce her to discreet theatrical
friends who would tell her of cosmetics less injurious to the skin, and
advise her generally in the ancient and proper art of "making up."

It was not the end she had looked for. Joan sighed as she closed her
door behind her. What was the meaning of it? On the one hand that
unimpeachable law, the greatest happiness of the greatest number; the
sacred cause of Democracy; the moral Uplift of the people; Sanity,
Wisdom, Truth, the higher Justice; all