“Do you stay in town, like this, at such a season, on purpose to attend to your work?” the Princess asked; and there was something archly rueful in the tone in which she made this inquiry, as if it cost her just a pang to find that in taking such a line she herself had not been so original as she hoped. “Mr Robinson has told me about your big house in Belgrave Square—you must let me come and see you there. Nothing would make me so happy as that you should allow me to help you a little—how little soever. Do you like to be helped, or do you like to go alone? Are you very independent, or do you need to look up, to cling, to lean upon some one? Excuse me if I ask impertinent questions; we speak that way—rather, you know—in Rome, where I have spent a large part of my life. That idea of your being there alone in your great dull house, with all your charities and devotions, makes a kind of picture in my mind; it’s quaint and touching, like something in some English novel. Englishwomen are so accomplished, are they not? I am really a foreigner, you know, and though I have lived here a while it takes one some time to find those things out _au juste_. Therefore, is your work for the people only one of your occupations, or is it everything, does it absorb your whole life? That’s what I should like it to be for me! Do your family like you to throw yourself into all this, or have you had to brave a certain amount of ridicule? I dare say you have; that’s where you English are strong, in braving ridicule. They have to do it so often, haven’t they? I don’t know whether I could do it. I never tried; but with you I would brave anything. Are your family clever and sympathetic? No? the kind of thing that one’s family generally is? Ah, well, dear lady, we must make a little family together. Are you encouraged or disgusted? Do you go on doggedly, or have you any faith, any great idea, that lifts you up? Are you religious, now, _par exemple?_ Do you do your work in connection with any ecclesiasticism, any missions, or priests or sisters? I’m a Catholic, you know—but so little! I shouldn’t mind in the least joining hands with any one who is really doing anything. I express myself awkwardly, but perhaps you know what I mean. Possibly you don’t know that I am one of those who believe that a great social cataclysm is destined to take place, and that it can’t make things worse than they are already. I believe, in a word, in the people doing something for themselves (the others will never do anything for them), and I am quite willing to help them. If that shocks you I shall be immensely disappointed, because there is something in the impression you make on me that seems to say that you haven’t the usual prejudices, and that if certain things were to happen you wouldn’t be afraid. You are shy, are you not?—but you are not timorous. I suppose that if you thought the inequalities and oppressions and miseries which now exist were a necessary part of life, and were going