"Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who would give a great deal to be chronicled by the public prints as you are. The morning and evening star is always mentioned while the little asteroids go unnoticed." "Well, I don't know about that," said the girl, "but I do wish the papers would let me alone--and my father too." "Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what you were referring to. That was an outrageous attack. So utterly unfounded, too, absolutely untrue. Such scurrilous attacks deserve the reprobation of all thinking men." "The trouble is that the attack was untrue; but the story was not unfounded." "What! What do you mean?" The clergyman's face wore a puzzled expression. "That our car was hitched on to the train----" "And why shouldn't it be, my dear young lady? Doesn't the road belong to your father; at least, to your family--and those whom they represent?" "I don't know that it does, and that is one reason why I have come to see you." "Of course, it does. You will have to go to a lawyer to ascertain the exact status of the title; but I have always understood it does. Why, your aunt, Mrs. Argand, owns thousands of shares, doesn't she, and your father?" A grave suspicion suddenly flitted across his mind relative to a rumor he had heard of heavy losses by Mr. Leigh and large gains by Mr. Canter, the president of the road, and his associates who, according to this rumor, were hostile to Mr. Leigh. "I don't know, but even if they do, I am not sure that that makes them owners. Did you read that article?" "No--well, not all of it--I glanced over a part of it, enough to see that it was very scurrilous, that's all. The headlines were simply atrocious. The article itself was not so wickedly----" "I should like to do some work among the poor," said the girl irrelevantly. "Why, certainly--just what we need--the earnest interest and assistance of just such persons as yourself, of your class; the good, earnest, representatives of the upper class. If we had all like you there would be no cry from Macedonia." "Well, how can I go about it?" demanded the girl rather cutting in on the rector's voluble reply. "Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school--we have a class of nice girls, ladies, you know, a very small one--and I could make my superintendent arrange for Miss--for the lady who now has them to take another class--one of the orphan classes." "No, I don't mean that kind of thing. If I taught at all I should like to try my hand at the orphan class myself." "Well, that could be easily arranged--" began the rector; but his visitor kept on without heeding him. "Only I should want to give them all different hats and dresses. I can't bear to see all those poor little things dressed exactly in the same way--sad, drab or gray frocks, all cut by the same pattern--and the same hats, year in and year out." "Why, they have new hats every year," expostulated the rector.