than the clean should be brought down to the level of the dirty. It
seemed that in doing this you were destroying the independence of the
poor. Opposition reformers, in letters scintillating with paradox,
bristling with classical allusion, denounced her attempt to impose middle-
class ideals upon a too long suffering proletariat. Better far a few
lively little heads than a broken-spirited people robbed of their
parental rights.

Through Miss Lavery she obtained an introduction to the great Sir
William. He owned a group of popular provincial newspapers, and was most
encouraging. Sir William had often said to himself:

"What can I do for God who has done so much for me?" It seemed only
fair.

He asked her down to his "little place in Hampshire," to talk plans over.
The "little place," it turned out, ran to forty bedrooms, and was
surrounded by three hundred acres of park. God had evidently done his
bit quite handsomely.

It was in a secluded corner of the park that Sir William had gone down
upon one knee and gallantly kissed her hand. His idea was that if she
could regard herself as his "Dear Lady," and allow him the honour and
privilege of being her "True Knight," that, between them, they might
accomplish something really useful. There had been some difficulty about
his getting up again, Sir William being an elderly gentleman subject to
rheumatism, and Joan had had to expend no small amount of muscular effort
in assisting him; so that the episode which should have been symbolical
ended by leaving them both red and breathless.