"Maybe: nevertheless, they founded a religion and changed the world. And, Helen, you and the people like you laugh at Communism and the complaints of the laboring classes, but it's like Samson and the Philistines; and this Samson, blind though he is, will one day, unless we do something besides laugh, pull the pillars down on his head--and on ours." "He will _try_" said the countess: "if we are wise, we shall be ready and shoot him dead." She kissed Mrs. Greymer smilingly, and went away. Her friend, watching her from the window, saw her stop to pat a great dog on the head and give a little boy a nickel piece. One Sunday afternoon, two weeks later, the two friends crossed the bridge to D---- to visit the Baileys. When they reached the end of the bridge they paused a moment to rest. The day was one of those warm, bright spring days which deceitfully presage an immediate summer. On the river-shore crawfishes were lazily creeping over the gravel. The air rang with the blue jay's chatter, a robin showed his tawny breast among the withered grasses, and a flicker on a dead stump bobbed his little red-barred head and fluttered his yellow wings. Beneath the bridge the swift current sparkled in the sun. Over the river, on each side, rose the hills. The gray stone of the government works was visible to the right through the leafless trees: nearer, square, yellow and ugly, stood the old arsenal. A soldier, musket on shoulder, marched along the river-edge: the cape of his coat fluttered in the breeze and his slanting bayonet shone like silver. Before them lay D----, the smoke from its mills and houses curling into the pale blue air. The countess drew a long breath: she had a keen feeling for beauty. "Yes, it is a lovely place," she said. "The hills are not high enough, but the river makes amends for everything. But what are those hideous shanties, Therese?" "Are they not hideous?" said Mrs. Greymer. "They are all pine, and it gets such an ugly dirt-black when it isn't painted. The glass is broken out of the windows and the shingles have peeled off the roofs. When it rains the water drips through. In spring, when the river rises, it comes up to their very doors: one spring it came in. It is not a nice place to live in." "Not exactly: still, I suppose people do live there." "Yes, the Baileys live there. You see, the rent is low." The countess lifted her eyebrows and followed Mrs. Greymer without answering. Some sulky-looking men were smoking pipes on the doorsteps, and a few women, whose only Sunday adorning seemed to have been plastering their hair down over their cheeks with a great deal of water, gossiped at the corner. Half a dozen children were playing on the river-bank. "They fall in every little while," Therese explained, "they are so small, and most of the mothers here go out washing. This is the Baileys'."