was true. It would have been hard for me to imagine anyone so
ignorant of the realities of modern life. The men and women she had
met she understood quite miraculously, but they were only two kinds,
the "best people" and their negro servants. There had been a whole
regiment of relatives on guard to keep her from knowing anybody
else, or anything else, and if by chance a dangerous fact broke into
the family stockade, they had formulas ready with which to kill it.

"But now," Sylvia went on, "I've got some money, and I can help, so
I dare not be ignorant any longer. You must show me the way, and my
husband too. I'm sure he doesn't know what can be done."

I said that I would do anything in my power. Her help would be
invaluable, not merely because of the money she might give, but
because of the influence of her name; the attention she could draw
to any cause she chose. I explained to her the aims and the methods
of our child-labour committee. We lobbied to get new legislation;
we watched officials to compel them to enforce the laws already
existing; above all, we worked for publicity, to make people realise
what it meant that the new generation was growing up without
education, and stunted by premature toil. And that was where she
could help us most--if she would go and see the conditions with her
own eyes, and then appear before the legislative committee this
winter, in favour of our new bill!

She turned her startled eyes upon me at this. Her ideas of doing
good in the world were the old-fashioned ones of visiting and
almsgiving; she had no more conception of modern remedies than she
had of modern diseases. "Oh, I couldn't possibly make a speech!" she
exclaimed.