I haven't done anything yet but hospital nursing." Lady Meadowcroft drew a slight sigh.

"What a pity!" she murmured, slowly.

"It does seem hard that your sympathies should all be thrown away, so to speak, on a horrid lot of wretched poor people, instead of being spent on your own equals--who would so greatly appreciate them." "I think I can venture to say the poor appreciate them, too," Hilda answered, bridling up a little--for there was nothing she hated so much as class-prejudices.

"Besides, they need sympathy more; they have fewer comforts.

I should not care to give up attending my poor people for the sake of the idle rich." The set phraseology of the country rectory recurred to Lady Meadowcroft--"our poorer brethren," and so forth.