had to go to a committee meeting. I have more work on my hands just now
than I can do. Would you mind my just finishing this letter for the post?
It is very important. I shall not be five minutes."

Miss Merivale, who had seen Clare running about the garden at Woodcote
three summers before with her hair flying, was considerably taken aback by
her extremely "grown-up" manner. She sat meekly down on the sofa and
waited for the letter to be finished.

"There, it's done!" Clare exclaimed, after a moment or two. "Now I will
just give it to Mrs. Richards, and we can have a little talk. Pauline will
be back in half an hour," She glanced as she spoke at a tiny clock on the
writing-table. "Then after lunch I must rush off to Southwark. I shall
find a big mothers' meeting waiting for me. The women bring their
needlework, and I talk to them. Last week we considered Food Stuffs in
reference to young children, and this afternoon I am going to discuss
Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education."

"Dear me! these sound very difficult subjects for you, my dear," said Miss
Merivale, trying to repress a laugh as she looked at Clare's serious young
face. "They must need a great deal of preparation."

"Yes, that is the worst of it. I haven't time for any study. We workers
lead very busy lives, Miss Merivale. I am rushing all day from one thing
to another, feeling all the time that I ought to be doing something else."

It suggested itself to Miss Merivale that work undertaken in that hurried
fashion must do more harm than good; but she was too eager to speak of
Rhoda Sampson to think much of anything else. "You have someone to help
you, Miss Smythe told us yesterday," she said. "Someone who typewrites