way home, and Mary nodded assent. She didn't mind any
amount of "just plain talking," especially when it succeeded in arousing
such interest as this first effort had done. She told the same story
several times that week in Riverville to small audiences, and then again
in Maysport, in a room so large that she had to stand in order to make
herself heard. But even then she was not embarrassed, for Mrs. Blythe
was standing too. She had turned in the midst of her own talk to say
quite naturally, "You tell them about that part of it, Miss Ware. You
can make them see it more plainly than I."

Again Mary, in the midst of profound silence, saw eyes grow misty with
sympathy and saw faces light up with indignation at her recital. It
never occurred to her to write home that she had spoken in public. She
didn't really count it as such, for, as she told Sandford Berry, it
wasn't a real speech. It was just as if she had seen a case that needed
the attention of a Humane officer, and had stopped in off the street to
report it. It was Mrs. Blythe who made the real speeches, who put their
duty so clearly before the people of Riverville that before August was
over a Better Homes society had been organized, and a score of members
enrolled as active workers.

When Mary had time to stop and think, she realized that she was truly in
the thick of things at last, for the more she tried to interest people
the more necessary she found it to go often to the tenements for fresh
pictures of their need. And sometimes a day that began by sending her to
a needy family on Myrtle Street, ended by taking her to a musicale or a
lawn fete in one of the most beautiful homes of the city. Mrs. Blythe's
introduction of her everywhere as her friend, rather than her secretary,
would have opened Riverville doors to her of its own self, but, aside
from that, Mary won an entrance to many a friendship on her own account.
She was so sincerely interested in everything and everybody, so glad to
make friends, so fresh in her enthusiasm, and so attractive in all the
healthy vigor of heart and body which a sturdy outdoor life had given
her.

CHAPTER IV

"PINK" OR DIAMOND ROW

The long hot summer was followed by a September so dry and dusty that
the town lay parched in the sweltering heat.

"Doesn't it make you feel like a wilted lettuce leaf?" Mary said to
Sandford Berry one noon when they met at the boarding-house gate on
their way in to dinner. "I've been d