and that in no way could they better accomplish this object than by
settling in the people's midst, living their life, taking part in their
work. I was passing through a similar phase of mental evolution.

I felt a strong desire to free myself from all the ideas, customs, and
prejudices which usually influence my class, to throw myself into the life
and the work of the masses. Thus it was that I worked hard to learn how to
compose and print, that I might be of use to the Cause in the most
practical manner of all--the actual production of its literature. Thus it
was also that I resolutely hardened myself against any instinctive
sentiments of repulsion which the unclean and squalid surroundings of the
people might raise in me. I remember reading an article by Tolstoi which
appeared in the English press, dealing with the conditions of the Russian
_moujik_, in which he clearly and uncompromisingly stated that in
order to tackle the social problem, it is necessary to tackle dirt and
vermin with it. If you desire to reach your _moujik_ you must reach
him _a travers_ his dirt and his parasites: if you are disinclined to
face these, then leave your _moujik_ alone. It was in fact a case of
"take me, take my squalor." I determined to take both.

Dr. Armitage left me at the corner of Oxford Circus, but before I had
taken many steps farther, I heard him suddenly turn round, and in an
instant he had come up with me again.

"By the way, Isabel," he exclaimed, "I was quite forgetting to mention
something I had done, to which I trust you will not object. You know how
full up my place is just now with hard-up comrades. Well I took the
liberty to send on to you a young Scotchman, I forget his name, who has
just tramped up from the North; a most interesting fellow, rather
taciturn, but with doubtless a good deal in him. He had nowhere to pass