But Pamela shook her head, and with all his urging Philip could not make her describe her exact sphere of activity. Yet Miss South or Julia could have told that no resident was more useful than Pamela, who devoted her evenings to the girls, talking to them, playing games, and in all that she did directing their thoughts toward the appreciation of beautiful things. Every Saturday she took two or three to the Art Museum, and later she meant them to see any exhibitions that there might be in town. One or two critics were inclined to laugh at this work. "It would put strange ideas into the heads of the girls. They would want things that they could never own." But Pamela was satisfied when she saw the rapturous glance of appreciation on the faces of Concetta and Inez, the most artistic of the girls, and the awakening interest in the others. But how could she explain all this to Philip in casual conversation at a dinner-table? Maggie, helping Angelina, found this, her first experience in waiting on company, very trying. To overcome her timidity Miss South had purposely assigned her to this task. But who could have supposed that she would let the bread fall as she passed it to Philip, tilting the plate so far that a slice or two fell on the table before him. "There!" and he smiled good-humoredly, "the Mansion realizes the extent of my appetite, and evidently I am to receive more even than I ask for." Poor Maggie's next mishap was to drop a dessert plate as she started to take it from the sideboard. "It was because you looked at me so hard," she said afterwards to Angelina; "I couldn't think what you wanted, you were shaking your head so fierce." "Why, it was the finger-bowl, child. You forgot it. There should be one on every plate. When I told you to get extra things for company, I meant finger-bowls too. We always have them on the dessert plates." "Oh, yes," said Maggie, as if her not getting them had been the merest oversight, although really this was her first experience in waiting at dinner, and she had not a good memory for the details that had been taught her. But shy as she was, she did not hesitate to take part in the conversation once or twice. Miss South and the others showed no surprise when twice her voice was heard replying to questions that Philip had expected Miss South or Pamela to answer. After the older people returned to the library, Angelina confided to Maggie that Mr. Philip Blair was to give a lecture at the Mansion in a week or two. "I know all about it, because Miss Julia told me a few days ago." Haleema, the little Syrian girl, who was helping Maggie in her dish-washing, paused in her singing to listen to Angelina's accounts of the wonderful adventures that Mr. Blair had had in the West. "Ho!" said Haleema, "it ain't nothing to go bear-hunting, if you don't get killed. Why, I've had two uncles and ten cousins killed by the Turks," and then she went on singing cheerfully,--