'I suppose I know,' said Hazel. 'To identify yourself, in a sort, with the people, and to give them good amusements, and to entice them on.' 'All that. And to keep them out of the gin shops. Saturday night is pay time. With his pockets full of money, what can a poor rascal do but ruin himself with beer, if he knows nothing better? I am following an English example in the endeavour to save them. I provide coffee and buns, at cost prices; and then I manage to give them entertainment, with a spice of instruction, till too late in the night to allow of any foolery at the other places. I think I am succeeding pretty well; the popularity of my readings has been steadily on the increase. By and by I am going to vary the programme with microscopic and other exhibitions,—as soon as the people are ready for it, and I am ready.' Miss Wych walked over to a prostrate cotton bale, and mounting upon it took a general survey of the room, ending with its owner and a flash of fun. 'Now,' she said, 'I am you, and you are the audience. Would they come to a regular night-school, do you think? And whereabouts in the Hollow do you intend to place a cotton bale for me?' 'What will you do from it?' 'Something so different from what you do, that unless we run on different evenings, one of us will draw empty houses,' said Hazel, softly stepping along the cotton-bale from end to end. 'Where does Miss Powder sit?'—this with a sudden pause at one end of the bale. 'Where she will never sit again,' said Rollo. 'She was here Saturday night with a party. I had wind of it before, and notified my people that it would be a German night. So it was.' Hazel laughed. 'And she went home to study German!—Very dangerous conduct, Mr. Rollo! Suppose _I_ had come with the party?' Rollo was here interrupted by a question of business. When it was despatched, he came up to Wych Hazel's perch and jumped her down. 'You must come away,' he said; 'it's too cold here for you. What is in your mind, Hazel? What will you do, if I give you a bale? and where will you have it? Go on, and tell me what is in your head?' The wistful look came back again, humble and sweet. Clearly, however well Hazel thought of her power to take care of herself, she was less sure about taking care of other people. 'I doubt if I am fit for any such elevation yet,' she said. 'But I suppose there are some things I could teach the children. And I might be a Visiting Committee—to go about in the houses and find out the women's wants and troubles, and clear some of them away. I know at least how people ought _not_ to live.' 'You can do that,' said Rollo; 'and that is just what you will do admirably. Did you think I was going to set you to teach school?' 'Are you quite sure you are not?' said she, laughing up at him. 'I could, Mr. Rollo,—if I might learn first.'