(Minor.) "But of course the loneliness _is_ a handicap. Having no one who needs you, no one to welcome you home. So sad! Especially in the evenings! Solitary people are apt to grow morose. You will miss Kathie's bright happy ways. (Quick change!) Well! Well! No one _need_ be lonely in this world. There are thousands of suffering souls fainting by the wayside for lack of the very help which it is in your power to give. If I could just tell you of some cases I know!" I pricked up my ears. "I wish you would. I like to hear about other people's troubles!" "My dear! Such a startling way of putting things! You don't mean it. I know your tender heart! Of course the worst cases are in the big cities. London, now! Every time I go to London, and travel as one is obliged to do from one end of the city to the other, I look out upon those endless rows and rows of streets of small houses, and at the great towering blocks of flats at every turn, and feel _appalled_ at the thought of the misery that goes on inside!" "And the joy!" "My dear, what kind of joy _can_ there be in such places?" "Not your kind perhaps, nor mine, but real enough all the same. People love one another, and have their own pleasures and interests. Little clerks come home to little wives and tell of little successes. Women in ugly houses buy some new piece of ugliness, and find it beautiful, and rejoice. Babies toddle about--fat, pretty things, with curly mops." She stared at me blankly. "Curly mops! What does it matter whether their hair curls or not? Ah, my dear, in such circumstances children are not all joy. I had a letter from a friend the other day--Lady Templar. We were at school together. Her nephew, Wenham Thorold, has lost his wife. Married at twenty-three. So silly! A clergyman's daughter, without a sou. Now, of course, she dies, and leaves him with five small children." "Very inconsiderate!" "Very inconvenient for the poor man! Only thirty-five, and a baby in arms. How will it help him if its hair curls? He puts the elder children to bed himself after his day's work. Quite pathetic to hear of! Wouldn't he have been happier with one?" "Possibly--for the present. Later on the five will help _him_, and he will be glad and proud." "Children dragged up by strangers are not always a credit and pride. I hope these may be, but--If you'd heard my friend's tales! They live in a flat. Quite a cheap block in some unfashionable neighbourhood. _No_ society. He has one small maid and a housekeeper to look after the children. Most inefficient, Adela says. Holes in their stockings, and shrieks the moment their father is out of the building!" "What was he like?" "He? Who? Oh, the poor father! Handsome, she said, but haggard. The Templar nose. Poor, helpless man!"