'We're only scratching at the surface,' Vida, said--'such an ugly surface, too! And the more we scratch, the uglier things come to light.' 'You make too much of that disappointment at Christmas.' 'I wasn't even thinking of the hundredth time you've been disillusioned.' Vida threw down her table napkin, and stood up. 'I was thinking of people like our young parson cousin.' 'George----' Vida made a shrug of half-impatient, half-humorous assent. 'Leaves the Bishop's Palace and comes to London. He, too, wants "to live for the poor." Never for an instant one of them. Always the patron--the person something may be got out of--or, at all events, hoped from.' She seemed to be about to leave the room, but as her sister answered with some feeling, 'No, no, they love and respect him!' Vida paused, and brought up by the fire that the sudden cold made comforting. 'George is a different man since he's found his vocation,' Mrs. Fox-Moore insisted. 'You read it in his face.' 'Oh, if all you mean is that _he's_ happier, why not? He's able to look on himself as a benefactor. He's tasting the intoxication of the King among Beggars.' 'You are grossly unfair, Vida.' 'So he thinks when I challenge him: "What good, what earthly good, is all this unless an anodyne--for you--is good?"' 'It seems to me a very real good that George Nuneaton and his kind should go into the dark places and brighten hopeless lives with a little Christian kindness--sometimes with a little timely counsel.' 'Yes, yes,' said the voice by the fire; 'and a little good music--don't forget the good music.' 'An object-lesson in practical religion, isn't that something?' 'Practical! Good Heaven! A handful of complacent, expensively educated young people playing at reform. The poor wanting work, wanting decent housing--wanting _bread_--and offered a little cultivated companionship.' 'Vida, what have you been reading?' 'Reading? I've been visiting George at his Settlement. I've been intruding myself on the privacy of the poor once a week with you--and I'm done with it! Personally I don't get enough out of it to reconcile me to their getting so little.' 'You're burning,' observed the toneless voice from the head of the table. 'Yes, I believe I was a little hot,' Vida laughed as she drew her smoking skirt away from the fire. But she still stood close to the cheerful blaze, one foot on the fender, the green cloth skirt drawn up, leaving the more delicate fabric of her silk petticoat to meet the fiery ordeal. 'If it annoys you to hear me say that's my view of charity, why, don't make me talk about it;' but the face she turned for an instant over her shoulder was far gentler than her words. 'And don't in future'--she was again looking down into the fire, and she spoke slowly as one who delivers a reluctant ultimatum--'don't ask me to help, except with money. _That_ doesn't cost so much.'