“How unwise I was to put the idea into her head,” he told himself, and, descending from his eminence, went to meet her. “This is indeed a surprise, yerce, yerce,” he said, shaking her coldly by the hand. He thought that she would be cut to the heart by the fact that he failed to qualify the surprise as pleasant. She did not notice the omission. She was not accustomed to being made very welcome. “I have followed your advice,” she said. “I have come down to ask you for work.” “How very well-timed,” said the priest’s sister just behind him. “Christopher, introduce the young lady.” “We will talk of that later,” said the priest. “I have not finished my address.” But he virtually had. For he could find nothing else to say, although he continued speaking. The girls lost interest, and began passing each other letters and photographs from their chaps. A little plain girl, beside whom the suffragette had taken her seat, handed her one of these documents. I have said that the suffragette had a hard face—it is worth noting that no beggar ever begged of her unless he was blind. But I suppose she had loved women so long and so fiercely that there was something in her look that established confidence in the women she met. Nobody would have handed a love-letter to Mrs. Rust to read, within five minutes of her first appearance. “The cocoa is ready, Christopher,” said the priest’s sister audibly, from an inner room. A remark like this, though trivial, will throw almost any orator off his track. The priest stopped, with the resigned sigh of Christian irritation. The suffragette handed the letter back to her neighbour. “What a nice chap yours must be,” she said. “Are you the young woman wot’s come to ply the pianner?” asked the girl. “I’m not sure,” replied the suffragette, with a guarded look at the priest. “I rather think I am.” This was luckily considered amusing, and over the cocoa the comments on the new young woman were favourable. The priest’s sister came out from the inner room, whence proceeded the loud bubbling squeaks of cocoa-drinkers. “Now, Christopher,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me you had found a new helper?” “I do not know that I have, my dear,” replied the priest. “This young lady has misinterpreted something I said to her.” “It’s very lucky that she did, then,” said the priest’s sister. “We are so badly in need of a new voluntary helper.” “You oblige me to put the matter baldly, my dear,” said the priest, keeping his temper with a creditable effort. “This is the young lady I mentioned to you last night in the course of conversation. All our helpers hitherto have been of the highest moral character.” “From your face...” said the priest’s sister to the suffragette. “I am sure you mean well. I am sure you are not wicked. And if you have slipped, there is nothing like hard work in the Brown Borough to make you forget.”