manners and breeding were different, and it might be very embarrassing all
round. Isn't there that side to be regarded?"

"You beg the question," said the minister, as unsparingly as if she were
a man. "The point is whether a Social Union beginning in social exclusion
could ever do any good. What part do these ladies expect to take in
maintaining it? Do they intend to spend their evenings there, to associate
on equal terms with the shoe-shop and straw-shop hands?"

"I don't suppose they do, but I don't know," said Annie dryly; and she
replied by helplessly quoting Mr. Brandreth: "They intend to organise a
system of lectures, concerts, and readings. They wish to get on common
ground with them."

"They can never get on common ground with them in that way," said the
minister. "No doubt they think they want to do them good; but good is from
the heart, and there is no heart in what they propose. The working people
would know that at once."

"Then you mean to say," Annie asked, half alarmed and half amused, "that
there can be no friendly intercourse with the poor and the well-to-do
unless it is based upon social equality?"

"I will answer your question by asking another. Suppose you were one of the
poor, and the well-to-do offered to be friendly with you on such terms as
you have mentioned, how should you feel toward them?"

"If you make it a personal question--"

"It makes itself a personal question," said the minister dispassionately.