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 long for a reply, but proceeded to point out, in a large and exhaustive way, the financial impossibilities of the plan. Jessica had neither heart nor words for an interruption, and Miss Kate listened in an absent-minded manner, her eyes on the plumes and velvets in the showcase.

The interruption did come in a curiously unexpected fashion. A loud stamping of wet feet was heard on the step outside; then the door from the street was opened. The vehemence of the call-bell’s clamor seemed to dismay the visitor, or perhaps it was the presence of the ladies. At all events, he took off his hat, as if it had been a parlor instead of a shop, and made an awkward inclusive bow, reaching one hand back for the latch, as if minded to beat a retreat.

“Why, Mr. Tracy!” exclaimed Tabitha, rising from her chair.

Reuben advanced now and shook hands with both her and Jessica. For an instant the silence threatened to be embarrassing, and it was not wholly relieved when Tabitha presented him to Miss Minster, and that young lady bowed formally without moving in her chair. But the lawyer could not suspect the disagreeable thoughts which were chasing one another behind these two unruffled and ladylike fronts, and it was evident enough that his coming was welcome to the mistress of the little shop.

“I have wanted to look in upon you before,” he said to Jessica, “and I am ashamed to think that I haven’t done so. I have been very much occupied with other matters. It doesn’t excuse me to myself, but it may to you.”

“Oh, certainly, Mr. Tracy,” Jessica answered, and then realized how miserably inadequate the words were. “It’s very kind of you to come at all,” she added.

Tabitha shot a swift glance at her companion, and the two ladies rose, as by some automatic mechanical device, absolutely together.

“We must be going, Miss Lawton,” said the old maid, primly.

A woman’s intuition told Jessica that something had gone wrong. If she did not entirely guess the nature of the trouble, it became clear enough on the instant to her that these ladies misinterpreted Reuben’s visit. Perhaps they did not like him—or perhaps—She stepped toward them and spoke eagerly, before she had followed out this second hypothesis in her mind.

“If you have a moment’s time to spare,” she pleaded, “I wish you would let me explain to Mr. Tracy the plan I have talked over with you. He was my school-teacher; he is my oldest friend—the only friend I had when I was—a—a girl, and I haven’t seen him before since the day I arrived home here. I should so much like to have you hear his opinion. The lady I spoke of—Mrs. Fairchild—wrote to him about me. Perhaps he knows of the plan already from her.”

Reuben did not know of the plan, and the two ladies consented to take seats again while it should be explained to him. Tabitha assumed a distant and uneasy expression of countenance, and looked straight ahead of her out through the glass door until the necessity for relief by conversation swelled up within her to bursting point; for Kate had rather flippantly deserted her, and so far from listening with haughty reserve under protest, had actually joined in the talk, and taken up the thread of Jessica’s stumbling explanation.

The three young people seemed to get on extremely well together. Reuben fired up with enthusiasm at the first mention of the plan, and showed so plainly the sincerity of his liking for it that Miss Minster felt herself, too, all aglow with zeal. Thus taken up by friendly hands, the project grew apace, and took on form and shape like Aladdin’s palace.

Tabitha listened with a swiftly mounting impatience of her speechless condition, and a great sickening of the task of watching the cockade of the coachman outside, which she had imposed upon herself, as the talk went on. She heard Reuben say that he would gladly raise a subscription for the work; she heard Kate ask to be allowed to head the list with whatever sum he thought best, and then to close the list with whatever additional sum was needed to make good the total amount required; she heard Jessica, overcome with delight, stammer out thanks for this unlooked-for adoption and endowment of her poor little plan, and then she could stand it no longer.

“Have you quite settled what you will do with my house?” she asked, still keeping her face toward the door. “There are some other places along here belonging to me—that is, they always have up to now—but of course if you have plans about them, too, just tell me, and—”

“Don’t be absurd, Tabitha,” said Miss Minster, rising from her chair as she spoke. “Of course we took your assent for granted from the start. I believe, candidly, that you are more enthusiastic about it this moment than even we are.”

Reuben thought that the old lady dissembled her enthusiasm skilfully, but at least she offered no dissent. A few words more were exchanged, the lawyer promising again his aid, and Miss Minster insisting that she herself wanted the task of drawing up, in all its details, the working plan for the new institution, and, on second thoughts, would prefer to pay for it all herself.

“I have been simply famishing for something to do all these years,” she said, in smiling confidence, to Tracy, “and here it is at last. You can’t guess how happy I shall be in mapping out the whole thing—rules and amusements and the arrangements of the rooms and the furnishing, and—everything.”

Perhaps Jessicas face expressed too plainly the thought that this bantling of hers, which had been so munificently adopted, bade fair to be taken away from her altogether, for Miss Minster added: “Of course, when the sketch is fairly well completed, I will show it to you, and we will advise together,” and Jessica smiled again.

When the two ladies were seated again in the sleigh, and the horses had pranced their way through the wet snow up to the beaten track once more, Miss Tabitha said:

“I never knew a girl to run on so in all my born days. Here you are, seeing these two people for the very first time half an hour ago, and you’ve tied yourself up to goodness only knows what. One would think you’d known them all your life, the way you said ditto to every random thing that popped into their heads. And a pretty penny they’ll make it cost you, too! And what will your mother say?” Miss Minster smiled good-naturedly, and patted her companion’s gloved hand with her own. “Never you worry, Tabitha,” she said, softly. “Don’t talk, please, for a minute. I want to think.”

It was a very long minute. The young heiress spent it in gazing abstractedly at the buttons on the coachman’s back, and the rapt expression on her face seemed to tell more of a pleasant day-dream than of serious mental travail. Miss Wilcox was accustomed to these moods which called for silence, and offered no protest.

At last Kate spoke, with a tone of affectionate command. “When we get to the house I will give you a book to read, and I want you to finish every word of it before you begin anything else. It is called ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men,’ and it tells how a lovely girl with whole millions of pounds did good in England, and I was thinking of it all the while we sat there in the shop. Only the mortification of it is, that in the book the rich girl originated the idea herself, whereas I had to have it hammered into my head by—by others. But you must read the book, and hurry with it, because—or no: I will get another copy to read again myself. And I will buy other copies; one for her and one for him, and one—”

She lapsed suddenly into silence again. The disparity between the stupendous dream out of which the People’s Palace for East London’s mighty hive of millions has been evolved, and the humble project of a sitting-room or two for the factory-girls of a village, rose before her vision, and had the effect of making her momentarily ridiculous in her own eyes. The familiarity, too, with which she had labelled these two strangers, this lawyer and this milliner, in her own thoughts, as “him” and “her,” jarred just a little upon her maidenly consciousness. Perhaps she had rushed to embrace their scheme with too much avidity. It was generally her fault to be over-impetuous. Had she been so in this case?

“Of course, what we can do here”—she began with less eagerness of tone, thinking aloud rather than addressing Tabitha—“must at best be on a very small scale. You must not be frightened by the book, where everything is done with fairy prodigality, and the lowest figures dealt with are hundreds of thousands. I only want you to read it that you may catch the spirit of it, and so understand how I feel. And you needn’t worry about my wasting money, or doing anything foolish, you dear, timid old soul!”

Miss Wilcox, in her revolving mental processes, had somehow veered around to an attitude of moderate sympathy with the project, the while she listened to these words. “I’m sure you won’t, my dear,” she replied, quite sweetly. “And I daresay there can really be a great deal of good done, only, of course, it will have to be gone at cautiously and by degrees. And we must let old Runkle do the papering and whitewashing; don’t forget that. He’s had ever so much sickness in his family all the winter, and work is so slack.”

“Do you know, I like your Mr. Tracy!” was Kate’s irrelevant reply. She made it musingly, as if the idea were new to her mind.

“You can see for yourself there couldn’t have been anything at all in that spiteful Sarah Cheese-borough’s talk about him and her,” said Tabitha, who now felt herself to have been all along the champion of this injured couple. “How on earth a respectable woman can invent such slanders beats my comprehension.”

Kate Minster laughed merrily aloud. “It’s lucky you weren’t made of pancake batter, Tabitha,” she said with mock gravity; “for, if you had been, you never could have stood this being stirred both ways. You would have turned heavy and been spoiled.”

“Instead of which I live to spoil other people, eh?” purred the gratified old lady, shaking her curls with affectionate pride.

“If we weren’t out in the street, I believe I should kiss you, Tabitha,” said the girl. “You can’t begin to imagine how delightfully you have behaved today!”