e winter
went by it had been transformed. It was not the sting of defeat which
drove Burke Stoner to do it, nor the sting of public opinion aroused
against him, but the pride of his own daughter, a girl of Mary's age,
when she learned the facts in the case.

She chanced to be in the audience the day when Mary made her appeal, and
unaware that it was her father's property that was being described, was
one of the most thoroughly aroused listeners in the whole audience. But
when she saw her father's picture in the paper next day, set in the
midst of others, proclaiming him a disgrace to good citizenship, her
mortification at being thus publicly shamed was something pitiful to
see. Hitherto it had been her pride to see his name heading popular
subscription lists, and to hear him spoken of as the friend of the poor,
on account of liberal donations.

Nobody knew what kind of a scene took place when she read the condemning
headlines, but it was reported that she locked herself in her room and
refused to see her father for several days. She was his only child and
his idol, and she had to be pacified at any cost. So she had her way as
usual, this time to the transforming of the whole of Diamond Row, and
the comfort of its inmates.

It began with drains and city water-works to supplant the infected
cistern. It moved on to paint and plaster and new floors, to the putting
in of a skylight in two dark rooms, and the cutting of windows in the
third. And, more than that, it led to the opening of both skylight and
windows into the sympathies of Burke Stoner's petted daughter, and led
her out of her round of self-centred thoughts to unselfish interest in
her unfortunate neighbors. It is a question which of the two gained the
greatest inrush of sunshine by those openings.

Mary, watching all this, felt alternately exultant that she had been the
means of starting these blessed changes, and depressed by the thought
that she would be doing wrong if she turned her back on the opportunity
of continuing such work. Thanksgiving went by and the first of December.
As the shops began to put on holiday dress Mary began to be more
depressed than ever. The burden of her poor people pressed upon her more
sorely each day that she listened to their stories of the hard winter
and their struggle to make both ends meet. But more depressing still
were the times when old Mrs. Donegan begged her to come often, and
called down the blessing of all the saint