"They said they would send Miss Spare if I didn't, and in common
humanity I couldn't leave that old creature to the tender mercies of
Miss Spare."

"What did you say?"

The face of Miss Morison lighted with mocking amusement.

"That's the beauty of it," she cried, bursting into a low laugh which
was full of the keenest fun. "I began with the things I'd been told to
say; but the old woman said that all her life long she had wanted a
bonnet with red feathers, but that she had never expected to have one.
When she got this money, she went out to buy clothing, and in a window
she saw this bonnet marked five dollars. She piously remarked that it
seemed providential. She's like the rest of the world in finding what
she likes to be providential."

"Yes," murmured Maurice, half under his breath; "like my meeting you."

Miss Morison looked surprised, but she ignored the words, and went on
with her story.

"She said she concluded she'd rather go without the clothes, and have
the bonnet; and by the time we were through I had weakly gone back on
all the instructions I'd received, and told her she was right. She knew
what she wanted, and I don't blame her for getting it when she could.
I'm sick of seeing the poor treated as if they were semi-idiots that
couldn't think without leave from the Associated Charities."

The whole tone of the conversation was so much more frank than anything