That night she sat down on the little stool in front of her fire, and stared a long time into the flames. Yes, she must get busy. "I've been a pig. I've had a grouch on, just because I didn't get a stick of candy when I wanted it--and wouldn't I have been sick of my candy by this time, if I'd got it! How _can_ Lolly stand him? What a fool I was."... Yes, she must "get busy"; why not try and do something for those poor, wretched women who are sent to the House of Detention? What she had seen and heard in that stone-lined room had left a scar upon her mind. "I'll make Arthur tell me how to get at them," she thought. Suddenly she remembered Miss Eliza's thrust: "It's selfish in you--when he's so fond of you." She gave a little start: "Oh, but that's impossible! That sort of thing is over for him. But he's my best friend," she told herself. CHAPTER XXVI It was late in September, when she asked Arthur Weston to tell her how she could help "those awful women,"--as she called the poor creatures she had seen in jail. He had motored out to Lakeville for a cup of tea, and while they waited for the kettle to boil, they wandered off along the shore of the lake, and found a little inlet walled with willows, where they could sit on the beach and see nothing but the wrinkling flash of waves and a serene stretch of sky. They sat there, talking idly, and watching the willow leaves turn all their silvery backs to a hesitating breeze. Weston listened silently to her plans for "getting busy" with prison reform--when she suddenly broke off: "I don't see that the vote will do much." He gave her an astonished look. "What! This from _you_?" She nodded. "Of course I'm for suffrage, first, last, and all the time! But I'm sort of discouraged about what we can accomplish. Life is so big." The old cocksureness was gone. The pathos of common sense in Freddy made him wince. "But I've got to do something," she ended. "Miss Eliza told me I was selfish." "Look here! I won't let Cousin Eliza call you names! I reserve that for myself." She laughed. "You've done it, often enough." Arthur Weston tickled the sleeping Zip and whistled. "What do you suppose Laura told me the other day?" Fred said. "She said that 'no woman really knew what life meant unless she had a baby.' She said having a baby was like coming out of prison--because 'self' is a prison. Rather tall talk for little Laura, wasn't it?" "Any of the great human experiences are keys to our prison-house," he said. "True enough," she agreed; then, abruptly, her own great experience spoke: "Isn't it queer? I rather dislike Howard." "It's unreasonable. He's the same old Howard--a mighty decent chap." "He's not--what I supposed he was." "Well, that's your fault, not his. You dressed him up in your ideas; when he got into his own clothes, you didn't like him. Howard never pretended to be anything he wasn't." "Yes! Yes, he did!" she said, with sudden agitation. "He used to--listen to me."