"And I suppose that after that it will be a free subject, and liable to be discussed at any time?" queried Mabel, smiling.
"Certainly," assented Minnie, a little puzzled.
"O, Minnie, you can't think how amused I was at your efforts to keep from speaking about it yesterday and the day before! You would open your lips to say something every five minutes, and then suddenly recollecting yourself, you would close them again with a determined snap, but it was hard work to keep them closed, I could see that plainly enough."
Minnie laughed.
"I know it was," she confessed, "but I must say I did not dream that my efforts would be appreciated as thoroughly as they seem to have been."
"Well, be thankful it is so," advised Mabel. "And now I'm off. Good-bye."
That evening Minnie, seizing a favourable moment when the boys were all out, and she and her father alone, unfolded to him her scheme for the reformation of Hollowmell. He was, of course, greatly surprised, and at first very reluctant to allow his daughter to go among these people, even for the purpose she had at heart.
"You don't know what sort of people these miners are, my dear," he said when Minnie had made known to him in as few words as possible what she wished to do. "And as for reforming them, I don't think that possible, I don't indeed. You had better leave that to the missionary, I think, or to some one who knows the sort of folks they are, and how to deal with them."
"But they have proved that they don't know how to deal with them, they have all failed, so I mean to try a different plan from any of the common methods, besides I shall only have to do with the children at first; I want to try to influence the older people through them. Come, papa, do let me have the cottage and make a trial, and I promise if the result does not please you to give it up at the end of a month."
Mr. Kimberly shook his head a good deal, and grumbled a little that she might find something better to occupy her time than amusing a lot of dirty ragamuffins who would never thank her for her trouble, but finally gave in, to the unbounded delight of Minnie, who, it may be remarked, had never entertained a doubt as to the final issue of the debate, knowing well that her father would refuse her nothing on which she had so strenuously set her heart.