yoh'd see."

She went back with a terrible clinging pity to the Gehenna from
which she had escaped. The ill of life was real enough to
her,--a hungry devil down in those alleys and dens. Margret
listened, waked reluctantly to the sense of a different pain in
the world from her own,--lower deeps from which women like
herself draw delicately back, lifting their gauzy dresses.

"Miss Marg'et!"

Her face flashed.

"Well, Lois?"

"Th' Master has His people 'mong them very lowest, that's not for
such as yoh to speak to. He knows 'em: men 'n' women starved 'n'
drunk into jails 'n' work-houses, that 'd scorn to be cowardly or
mean,--that shows God's kindness, through th' whiskey 'n'
thievin', to th' orphints or--such as me. Ther' 's things th'
Master likes in them, 'n' it'll come right, it'll come right at
last; they'll have a chance--somewhere."

Margret did not speak; let the poor girl sob herself into quiet.
What had she to do with this gulf of pain and wrong? Her own
higher life was starved, thwarted. Could it be that the blood of
these her brothers called against HER from the ground? No wonder
that the huckster-girl sobbed, she thought, or talked heresy. It
was not an easy thing to see a mother drink herself into the
grave. And yet--was she to blame? Her Virginian blood was cool,