I took Margaret down. We achieved no feats of mutual expression, except that it was abundantly clear we were both very pleased and interested to meet again, and that we had both kept memories of each other. We made that Misterton tea-party and the subsequent marriages of my cousins and the world of Burslem generally, matter for quite an agreeable conversation until at last Altiora, following her invariable custom, called me by name imperatively out of our duologue. “Mr. Remington,” she said, “we want your opinion--” in her entirely characteristic effort to get all the threads of conversation into her own hands for the climax that always wound up her dinners. How the other women used to hate those concluding raids of hers! I forget most of the other people at that dinner, nor can I recall what the crowning rally was about. It didn't in any way join on to my impression of Margaret. In the drawing-room of the matting floor I rejoined her, with Altiora's manifest connivance, and in the interval I had been thinking of our former meeting. “Do you find London,” I asked, “give you more opportunity for doing things and learning things than Burslem?” She showed at once she appreciated my allusion to her former confidences. “I was very discontented then,” she said and paused. “I've really only been in London for a few months. It's so different. In Burslem, life seems all business and getting--without any reason. One went on and it didn't seem to mean anything. At least anything that mattered.... London seems to be so full of meanings--all mixed up together.” She knitted her brows over her words and smiled appealingly at the end as if for consideration for her inadequate expression, appealingly and almost humorously. I looked understandingly at her. “We have all,” I agreed, “to come to London.” “One sees so much distress,” she added, as if she felt she had completely omitted something, and needed a codicil. “What are you doing in London?” “I'm thinking of studying. Some social question. I thought perhaps I might go and study social conditions as Mrs. Bailey did, go perhaps as a work-girl or see the reality of living in, but Mrs. Bailey thought perhaps it wasn't quite my work.” “Are you studying?” “I'm going to a good many lectures, and perhaps I shall take up a regular course at the Westminster School of Politics and Sociology. But Mrs. Bailey doesn't seem to believe very much in that either.” Her faintly whimsical smile returned. “I seem rather indefinite,” she apologised, “but one does not want to get entangled in things one can't do. One--one has so many advantages, one's life seems to be such a trust and such a responsibility--” She stopped. “A man gets driven into work,” I said. “It must be splendid to be Mrs. Bailey,” she replied with a glance of envious admiration across the room. “SHE has no doubts, anyhow,” I remarked. “She HAD,” said Margaret with the pride of one who has received great confidences. 6