“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 quite alone? Are you very independent or do you need to look up, to cling, to lean on some one? Pardon me if I ask impertinent questions; we speak that way—rather, you know—in Rome, where I’ve spent a large part of my life. That idea of your being there by yourself, in your great dull home, with all your charities and devotions, makes a kind of picture in my mind; it’s quaint and touching, it’s like something in some English novel. Englishwomen are so awfully accomplished, are they not? I’m really a foreigner, you know, and though I’ve lived here a while it takes one some time to find those things out _au juste_. Is your work for the people therefore 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 daresay 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 think 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 some faith, some great idea, that lifts you up? Are you actively religious now, _par exemple_? Do you do your work in connexion with any pious foundation or earnest movement, any missions or priests or sisters? I’m a Catholic, you know—but so little by my own doing! I shouldn’t mind in the least joining hands with any one who’s really producing results. I express myself awkwardly, but perhaps you know what I mean. Possibly you don’t know that I’m one of those who believe that a great new deal is destined to take place and that it can’t make things worse than they are already. I believe, in a word, in the action of the people for themselves—the others will never act for them; and I’m all ready to act _with_ them—in any intelligent or intelligible way. If that shocks you I shall be immensely disappointed, because there’s something in the impression you make on me that seems to suggest you haven’t the usual prejudices, so that if certain things were to happen you wouldn’t be afraid. You’re beautifully shy, are you not?—but you’re not craven. I suppose that if