"If such a thing could be as my living with _her_!" thought Winifred. "That would be ideal. Whatever work I take up, I could manage to fit it in to such an arrangement. And if I decide on writing as my principal occupation, of course I shall be very independent--pen and ink can do their work anywhere." She watched Miss Norreys and the tall stranger--a man of forty or thereabouts--slightly grey, and with a somewhat peculiar stoop. "How good she is!" thought Winifred; "I can see he is boring her. I wonder what they are talking about." Better, perhaps, for her that she could not hear. "I did not interrupt you, I hope," the new-comer was saying. "You seemed rather engrossed with that little person on the sofa. But I came here on purpose to see you." "I hoped, too, I should see _you_," she replied. "No, the girl over there is a stranger to me, Helena Campion introduced us--rather rashly, for the poor thing imagines I can help her, and I really can't. She has to make her way in the world, and wants advice. I am sorry for her, but--I am really so busy." "My dear, you must not take any more burdens upon you. You really must _not_," said her old friend, decidedly. "What does the girl want? She is a lady, I suppose--well educated? I might introduce her to the `Reasonable Help Society.' They are increasing their staff, and she might get a small salary." Miss Norreys looked and felt grateful. "It would be most good of you," she said. "I _should_ be glad to help her, or, indeed, any one so placed, but the little I can do is in my own line, and I am overwhelmed with applications for assistance and advice in that direction." Mr Montague nodded sympathisingly. "No one would believe it," continued Hertha, with a half-rueful smile, "I could easily spend all my time in answering letters, trying songs, listening to would-be vocalists, and where would my own work be then? Yet the service which each asks--the individual service--seems so small. But how they mount up!" "It is the same in every department," her friend replied. "Once your name gets before the world, people seem to think you are common property, and have no right to your own time and strength. Literary people are even more bothered than you, if that is any comfort to you. For it is not every one that can deceive him or herself into imagining they possess musical gifts, whereas _everybody_ nowadays has a try at authorship." And if Hertha's smile had been rueful, Mr Montague's was grim. "This girl is _not_ musical, Heaven be praised!" Miss Norreys replied. "I rejoice to hear it--for your sake," he answered, fervently. "Tell me her name," and he drew out a tiny note-book. "Maryon--Miss Maryon--that is all I know," said Hertha. "Miss Marion," he wrote, "Marion _what_?" "Oh, it is her surname--M-a-r-y, not `i'," she corrected. "Lady Campion mentioned it in her note. A Miss Maryon who was dying to meet me, or some nonsense."