Presently she took up another subject that had been occupying her mind. "Do you know, Mr. Graeme, an idea has come to me about something we might do for some of these poor girls. I was asking Mr. Alden if we couldn't start some sort of club for them, such as I've read about—a place where they could spend the evenings when they chose, where they could have books or music, or anything else they liked. Don't you think that would brighten up their lives a little?"
"Yes, if you could get them to use it," he replied.
"Mr. Alden thinks we might manage it," she said. "And he said he would let us have that committee-room where the 'Helping Hands' meet, and they could use it always, except when there are meetings. So I am going to get it nicely fitted up by some of the young ladies I know here. Miss Farrell's going to help, and I think Miss Pomeroy will, too, if I ask her."
"It would be a capital thing, if you could only bring these young ladies into direct contact with the working-girls, so that they might know something of their lives, and realize their circumstances. That's what people really need, most of all."
"Well, I'm going to try," said Nora, decidedly.
Roland rose as if he thought it time for him to go. He took up the volume of Lowell's poems that Miss Blanchard had laid down on his entrance, and opened it where she had laid a geranium leaf to keep her place.
"Ah, I see, you are reading 'The Vision of Sir Launfal'! That is one of my favorites," he said.
"Yes, I think it is a lovely poem," she said.
He glanced at the open page, then out of the window, where, as the daylight was fading, the soft falling snow, clinging to the trees, was conjuring up a ghostly, spectral white forest without.
"We might alter these lines just a little," he said, "to describe that fairy scene: