be brought in contact with natures which drew upon her intellectual faculties. She believed herself modern in her sympathies, and in her capacity as a philanthropic worker was partial to the problems with which modern conditions and modern thought confront struggling human nature. "Won't you sit down? And perhaps you would like to lay your baby on the sofa while we talk and I make you some tea." The girl, who was prepared probably for a sterner method, yielded, after a quiver of uncertainty, to the fascination of this gracious appeal; pausing for a brief instant to examine the tiny face peering from the folds of the knit shawl in which the child was wrapped, but with a gaze scientific rather than maternal, as though she were seeking to trace a likeness or some law of heredity. Then she sat down and raised her eyes to meet her entertainer's with a glance bordering on irony, and which seemed to ask, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" Mrs. Wilson noticed that her hands, which lay in her lap, lightly crossed, with the palms down, were long and efficient-looking, and that she wore no wedding-ring. "Is it a boy or a girl?" Mrs. Wilson resumed, with disarming gentleness. "A girl." With a contraction of her mouth which began in a bitter smile and ended against her will in a gulp, she added, "I didn't intend to have it. I didn't want to have it. I suppose you've guessed I'm not a married woman." "Yes, I guessed that. I see, too, that you are in trouble, and my sole object in detaining you here to-night is to give you all the aid in my power. I'm not seeking to judge or to lecture you, but to help you." The girl regarded her with a matter-of-fact stare, then said, bluntly, "I'd have been all right now if your servant hadn't nabbed me." "You mean if you had succeeded in abandoning your child?" "Yes. I was earning my living before, and I could go on. I guess I could have got back my old place." "But-- Do you mind telling me why you wished to abandon your baby?" "That's why. I've just told you. To make a fresh start." "I see. And it was chance, I suppose, that you left it on my door-steps rather than elsewhere?" "You're Mrs. Randolph Wilson, aren't you?" "Yes." "I had read about you in the newspapers, and all about the wedding, and that you were tremendously rich. When my child was born I hoped she'd die; but, as she didn't, I made up my mind that the best thing I could do was to let you look after her. But the luck was against me a second time. I was caught again." She laughed as though her only concern was to let fate perceive that she had some sense of humor. Mrs. Wilson frowned involuntarily. Yet, though her taste was offended her curiosity was whetted. "But wasn't your--wasn't he man enough to look after you and provide for the child?"