on common ground with them."

"Yes," said Annie, "the object is certainly very good."

Mr. Brandreth rose again, and put out his hand. "Then you will help us?"

"Oh, I don't know about that yet."

"At least you won't hinder us?"

"Certainly not."

"Then I consider you in a very hopeful condition, Miss Kilburn, and I feel
that I can safely leave you to Mrs. Munger. She is coming to see you as
soon as she gets back."

Annie found herself sadder when he was gone, and she threw herself upon the
old feather-cushioned lounge to enjoy a reverie in keeping with the dreary
storm outside. Was it for this that she had left Rome? She had felt, as
every American of conscience feels abroad, the drawings of a duty, obscure
and indefinable, toward her country, the duty to come home and do something
for it, be something in it. This is the impulse of no common patriotism; it
is perhaps a sense of the opportunity which America supremely affords for
the race to help itself, and for each member of it to help all the rest.

But from the moment Annie arrived in Hatboro' the difficulty of being
helpful to anything or any one had increased upon her with every new fact
that she had learned about it and the people in it. To her they seemed
terribly self-sufficing. They seemed occupied and prosperous, from her
front parlour window; she did not see anybody going by who appeared to be