“Their ingratitude is awful,” wailed the president. “Well, I’m glad you have told me all this. Otherwise, I never could have had courage to tell you my last experience with visiting the dwellers in the slums as a member of the ‘Society for Procuring Better Ventilation in Other People’s Bedrooms!’ I called on one woman, who really seemed impressed by my arguments; she was quite polite, and never took her eyes off my bonnet all the time I was talking to her. I was so pleased with her that I gave her my address, and told her I would let her have a lot of pamphlets on the subject, if she would send for them. I knew I could not get one of my maids to carry them into that district, and besides her husband could easily come for them. He was a street paver, and no doubt would be glad to get the exercise.” “Of course,” said the blue-eyed girl. “Did he come?” “No. But she herself walked in on my reception day a few weeks later. She wore a bonnet which was a perfect caricature of mine. She said she hoped I would forgive her for delaying the returning of my call so long; and didn’t I think my reception-room was too warm to be quite healthy?” “Did you ever hear of such impertinence! and in your own house, too!” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “What did the other members of the society say?” “I don’t know. I resigned, by telephone, as soon as Tom and the doctor succeeded in bringing me out of my fainting fit.” “And no wonder,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, sympathetically. “And yet, people complain that we take so little interest in the poor! Only a real philanthropist can appreciate the rebuffs we receive. The only thing which helps us to bear them, is the knowledge that we are doing such incalculable good.” “It is very sweet and good of you to feel so,” sighed the girl with the eyeglasses. “I don’t know that I am quite so magnanimous, myself. Oh, Catharine, dear; you were speaking of Mr. Rocksby the other day. Did you ever hear the end of his affair with Florence?” “Why, no,” said the girl with the classic profile. “I only knew that it _had_ an end. How on earth did you find out about it?” “I heard that she and Effie had fallen out, and I asked Effie all about it. Of course she was glad enough to tell. It seems that there was a dance at the club in Arcadia, and Florence went out to stay with the Brownstones and attend it. Mr. Rocksby happened to meet her at the station, and went out with her, intending to return by the next train. It turned out that there was no train back until midnight, so the Brownstones invited him to dine and go to the dance with them. They even brought out a dress coat of Mr. Brownstone’s for him to wear, and Florence told Effie that he looked as if he weighed twenty pounds less when he put it on.” “It’s really wonderful the way people always help Florence along,” sighed the girl with the classic profile. “Nobody ever does such things for _me_.”