“He is wonderful; I came to a service last Sunday out of curiosity; I had never seen any of this settlement work. He talked to the people as though he were one of themselves--I suppose you wouldn’t call it preaching at all--and it is easy to see how they all love him.” “No doubt he interests them; but I suppose we’ll have to judge his work by its results,” he ventured, wishing to see what she would say. “I don’t agree with that, Mr. Craighill. If a man has the heart for a work like this, that’s enough, isn’t it? The results don’t matter.” He smiled at her earnestness, but replied gravely: “It’s a good deal; it’s undoubtedly a whole lot!” He had not been deeply impressed by the evening’s entertainment as a moral force. It seemed, in fact, a far cry from the performances of Paddock’s clumsy amateurs to the souls of the spectators. The reading-room he had liked better; and the cooking school was well enough, though it was difficult to reconcile any of it with his earlier knowledge of Paddock. He did not quite formulate the idea into words, but he was unable to see just how Paddock was to profit by these labours; nor was he persuaded that the people the minister served would be materially benefited. So far as Paddock was personally concerned he could join heartily enough in the girl’s admiration. But now that chance had thrown her again in his way, he wished to make the most of it; a poor art student, contributing her services in this humble fashion to the work of a social settlement, was a new species. She must be an unusual young woman or Fanny Blair would not have taken her up. The remembrance of her sharp rebuff in the art gallery did not make it easy to talk to her now; but she put down her cup and towel and addressed him with a directness that was disquieting. “I said a moment ago that I was sorry I had spoken to you in the way I did. I want to put it a little differently now. It troubled me afterward--I felt that I had been unjust; and I don’t think we ought to feel about anybody as I showed I felt about you--as though----” “As though being an infamous sort of person decent people shrink from was a bar,” he supplied, curious as to what she meant to say further. “Well,” she continued, “I didn’t apply to you that day one of my own principles: that we all owe something to each other--that we have no right to hurt anyone, no matter who it is. It’s what I think Mr. Paddock has come here to teach; it’s what I think religion is!” She was trying to apply Paddock’s religion to his case, and her sincerity was making a serious business of it. It was an odd sensation, this, of talking to a remarkably handsome young woman who frankly wished to deal with him in the light of her religion. He was surprised to find that he felt no inclination to laugh at her; she interested him immensely and he was sorry when Paddock returned and interrupted their interview. “I thank you,” he said; “I appreciate your kindness to me.”