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'vereally 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 lookedunderstandingly at her. "We have all," I agreed, "to come

to London."

"Onesees so much distress," she added, as if shefelt she had

completely omitted something, and needed a codicil.

"What are you doing in London?"

"I'mthinking of studying. Some social question. Ithought perhaps

I might go and study socialconditions as Mrs. Bailey did, go

perhaps as a work-girl orsee thereality of living in, but Mrs.

Baileythought perhaps it wasn't quite my work."

"Are you studying?"

"I'm going to agood 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."

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