Many other questions were asked, and many attempts were made at answers;
but when the shoppers began to press in, to such a degree that their
conversation was broken, and the energetic seeker after information felt
herself obliged to retire, one thing had been accomplished: Alfred Ried
had been made to realize that he knew much less than he had supposed he
did about the seven boys who had seemed to be filling his thoughts for
several weeks; and also, in his eager, passionate desire that everything
should be done for all of them, he had overlooked the chances for doing
here and there some little thing for one of them.

"Good morning," Mrs. Roberts had said, turning cordially to a
fashionably-dressed lady. "Collars? Oh, yes, this is the counter for them
to be found in endless variety. They have a new pattern that I have
been admiring. Mr. Ried, please show Mrs. Emory the curtain collars,
with embroidered points."

Which thing Mr. Ried proceeded to do with alacrity and respect, no trace
of the earlier contemptuous feeling shadowing his face. Here was a woman
who knew stylish collars when she saw them, and who also knew several
other things, and had taught him a lesson this very morning that he
would not be likely to forget.

But Mrs. Roberts, as she made her way out from the fast-filling store,
felt that she had not made great progress toward getting acquainted with
her class.

Still it must be admitted that if young Ried had gotten some new ideas,
so also had she. "A Christian home!" She found herself repeating the
phrase, lingering over it, wondering if her new home, in every sense of