"Well, how can I go about it?" demanded the girl rather cutting in on the rector's voluble reply.
"Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school—we have a class of nice girls, ladies, you know, a very small one—and I could make my superintendent arrange for Miss—for the lady who now has them to take another class—one of the orphan classes."
"No, I don't mean that kind of thing. If I taught at all I should like to try my hand at the orphan class myself."
"Well, that could be easily arranged—" began the rector; but his visitor kept on without heeding him.
"Only I should want to give them all different hats and dresses. I can't bear to see all those poor little things dressed exactly in the same way—sad, drab or gray frocks, all cut by the same pattern—and the same hats, year in and year out."
"Why, they have new hats every year," expostulated the rector.
"I mean the same kind of hat. Tall and short; stout and thin; slim or pudgy; they all wear the same horrible, round hats—I can't bear to look at them. I vow I'd give them all a different hat for Christmas."
"Oh! my dear, you can't do that—you would spoil them—and it's against the regulations. You must remember that these children are orphans!"
"Being orphans is bad enough," declared the girl, "but those hats are worse. Well, I can't teach them, but I might try some other poor class?"
"Why, let me see. The fact is that we haven't any"—he was speaking slowly, casting his mind over his field—"very poor people in this church. There used to be a number; but they don't come any more. They must have moved out of the neighborhood. I must make my assistant look them up."