"Yes, but this has been worse than usual. Mrs. Strange has been asking us
how many people we supposed there were in this city, within five minutes'
walk of us, who had no dinner to-day. Do you call that kind?"

"A little more than kin and less than kind, perhaps," the gentleman
suggested. "But what does she propose to do about it?"

He turned towards Mrs. Strange, who answered, "Nothing. What does any one
propose to do about it?"

"Then, why do you think about it?"

"I don't. It thinks about itself. Do you know that poem of Longfellow's,
'The Challenge'?"

"No, I never heard of it."

"Well, it begins in his sweet old way, about some Spanish king who was
killed before a city he was besieging, and one of his knights sallies out
of the camp and challenges the people of the city, the living and the
dead, as traitors. Then the poet breaks off, _apropos de rien:_

'There is a greater army
That besets us round with strife,
A numberless, starving army,
At all the gates of life.
The poverty-stricken millions
Who challenge our wine and bread
And impeach us all for traitors,
Both the living and the dead.