The opportunity which Jessica sought came with unlooked-for promptness—in fact, before she had quite resolved what to ask for, and how best to prefer her request.

It was a warm, sunny winter morning, with an atmosphere which suggested the languor of May rather than the eagerness of early spring, and which was already in these few matutinal hours playing havoc with the snowbanks. The effects of the thaw were unpleasantly visible on the sidewalks, where deep puddles were forming as the drifts melted away, and the back yard was one large expanse of treacherous slush. Jessica had hoped that her father would come, in order that he might cut away the ice and snow in front, and thus drain the walk for passers-by. But as the mild morning air rendered it unnecessary to seek the comfort of a seat by the stove, Ben preferred to lounge about on the outskirts of the hay-market, exchanging indolent jokes with kindred idlers, and vaguely enjoying the sunshine.

Samantha, however, chose this forenoon for her first visit to the milliner’s shop, and showed a disposition to make herself very much at home. The fact that encouragement was plainly wanting did not in any way abash her. Lucinda told her flatly that she had only come to see what she could pick up, and charged her to her face with having instigated her friends to offer them annoyance and affront. Samantha denied both imputations with fervor, the while she tried on before the mirror a bronze-velvet toque with sage-green feathers.

“I don’t know that I ever quite believed that of you, Samantha,” said Jessica, turning from her dismayed contemplation of the water on the sidewalk. “And if you really want to be friendly, why, you are welcome to come here. But I have heard of things you have said that were not at all nice.”

“All lies!” remarked Samantha, studying the effect of the hat as nearly in a profile view as she could manage with a single glass. “You can’t believe a word you hear here in Thessaly. Wouldn’t this go better if there was some yellow put in there, close by the feathers?”

“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Jessica. “I’ve never done you any harm, and never wished anything but well by you, and I couldn’t see why you should want to injure me.”

“Don’t I tell you they lied?” responded Samantha, affably. “‘Cindy, here, is always blackguarding me. You know you always did,” she added, in passing comment upon Lucinda’s indignant snort, “but I don’t bear no malice. It ain’t my nature to. I suppose a hat like this comes pretty high, don’t it?”

As she spoke, a sleigh was driven up with some difficulty through the yielding snowbanks, and stopped close to the sidewalk in front of the shop. It was by far the most distinguished-looking sleigh Jessica had seen in Thessaly. The driver on the front seat bore a cockade proudly in his high hat, and the horses he controlled were superbly matched creatures, with glossy silver-mounted harness, and with tails neatly braided and tied up in ribbons for protection from the slush. A costly silver-fox wrap depended over the back of the cutter, and a robe of some darker but equally sumptuous fur enfolded the two ladies who sat in the second seat.

Jessica was glad that so splendid an equipage should have drawn up at her door, with a new-born commercial instinct, even before she recognized either occupant of the sleigh.

“That’s Kate Minster,” said Samantha, still with the hat of her dreams on her head, “the handsomest girl in Thessaly, and the richest, and the stuck-up-edest. Cracky! but you’re in luck!”

Jessica did not know much about the Minsters, but she now saw that the other lady, who was already preparing to descend, and stood poised on the rail of the cutter looking timorously at the water on the walk, was no other than Miss Tabitha Wilcox.

She turned with quick decision to Samantha.

“I will give you that hat you’ve got on,” she said in a hurried tone, “if you’ll go with Lucinda clear back into the kitchen and shut both doors tight after you, and stay there till I call you.”

At this considerable sacrifice the store was cleared for the reception of these visitors—the most important who had as yet crossed its threshold.

Miss Tabitha did not offer to introduce her companion—whom Jessica noted furtively as a tall, stately, dark girl, with a wonderfully handsome face, who stood silently by the little showcase and was wrapped in furs worth the whole stock of millinery she confronted—but bustled about the store, while she plunged into the middle of an explanation about hats she had had, hats she thought of having, and hats she might have had, of which the milliner understood not a word. It was not, indeed, essential that she should, for presently Tabitha stopped short, looked about her triumphantly, and asked:

“Now, wasn’t I right? Aren’t they the nicest in town?”

The tall girl smiled, and inclined her dignified head.

“They are very pretty, indeed,” she answered, and Jessica remarked to herself what a soft, rich voice it was, that made even those commonplace words so delightful to the ear.

“I don’t know that we wanted to look at anything in particular,” rattled on Miss Tabitha. “We were driving by” (O Tabitha! as if Miss Kate had not commanded this excursion for no other purpose than this visit!) “and I just thought we’d drop in, for I’ve been telling Miss Minster about what excellent taste you had.”

A momentary pause ensued, and then Jessica, conscious of blushes and confusion, made bold to unburden her mind of its plan.

“I wanted to speak to you,” she said, falteringly at first, but with a resolution to have it all out, “about that vacant house in the back yard here. It looks as if it had been a carpenter’s shop last, and it seems in very bad repair.”

“I suppose it might as well come down,” broke in Miss Wilcox. “Still, I—”

“Oh, no! that wasn’t what I meant!” protested Jessica. “I—I wanted to propose something about it to you. If—if you will be seated, I can explain what I meant.”

The two ladies took chairs, but with a palpable accession of reserve on their countenances. The girl went on to explain:

“To begin with, the factory-girls and sewing-girls here spend too much time on the streets—I suppose it is so everywhere—the girls who were thrown out when the match factory shut down, particularly. What else can they do? There is no other place. Then they get into trouble, or at any rate they learn slangy talk and coarse ways. But you can’t blame them, for their homes, when they have any, are not pleasant places, and where they hire rooms it is almost worse still. Now, I’ve been thinking of something—or, rather, it isn’t my own idea, but I’ll speak about that later on. This is the idea: I have come to know a good many of the best of these girls—perhaps you would think they were the worst, too, but they’re not—and I know they would be glad of some good place where they could spend their evenings, especially in the winter, where it would be cosey and warm, and they could read or talk, or bring their own sewing for themselves, and amuse themselves as they liked. And I had thought that perhaps that old house could be fixed up so as to serve, and they could come through the shop here after tea, and so I could keep track of them, don’t you see?”

“I don’t quite think I do,” said Miss Tabitha, with distinct disapprobation. The other lady said nothing.

Jessica felt her heart sink. The plan had seemed so excellent to her, and yet it was to be frowned down.

“Perhaps I haven’t made it clear to you,” she ventured to say.

“Oh, yes, you have,” replied Miss Tabitha. “I don’t mind pulling the house down, but to make it a rendezvous for all the tag-rag and bob-tail in town—I simply couldn’t think of it! These houses along here have seen their best days, perhaps, but they’ve all been respectable, always!”

“I don’t think myself that you have quite grasped Miss Lawton’s meaning.”

It was the low, full, quiet voice of the beautiful fur-clad lady that spoke, and Jessica looked at her with tears of anxious gratitude in her eyes.

Miss Minster seemed to avoid returning the glance, but went on in the same even, musical tone:

“It appears to me that there might be a great deal of much-needed good done in just that way, Tabitha. The young lady says—I think I understood her to say—that she had talked with some of these girls, and that that is what they would like. It seems to me only common-sense, if you want to help people, to help them in their own way, and not insist, instead, that it shall be in your way—which really is no help at all!”

“Nobody can say, I hope, that I have ever declined to extend a helping hand to anybody who showed a proper spirit,” said Miss Wilcox, with dignity, putting up her chin.

“I know that, ma’am,” pleaded Jessica. “That is why I felt sure you would like my plan. I ought to tell you—it isn’t quite my plan. It was Mrs. Fairchild, at Tecumseh, who used to teach the Burfield school, who suggested it. She is a very, very good woman.”

“And I think it is a very, very good idea,” said Miss Kate, speaking for the first time directly to Jessica. “Of course, there would have to be safeguards.”

“You have no conception what a rough lot they are,” said Miss Tabitha, in more subdued protest. “There is no telling who they would bring here, or what they wouldn’t do.”

“Indeed, I am sure all that could be taken care of,” urged Jessica, taking fresh courage, and speaking now to both her visitors. “Only those whom I knew to mean well by the undertaking should be made members, and they would agree to very strict rules, I feel certain.”

“Why, child alive! where would you get the money for it, even if it could be done otherwise?” Miss Tabitha wagged her curls conclusively, but her smile was not unkind.

It would not be exact to say that Jessica had not considered this, but, as it was now presented, it seemed like a new proposition. She was not ready to answer it.

Miss Wilcox did not wait over ............