names that it's all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss Westmore, and represents the clan at Hanaford—leads society, and keeps up the social credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines kept strictly to his special business, and always refused to interfere between Truscomb and the operatives. As president he will probably follow the same policy, the more so as it fits in with his inherited respect for the status quo, and his blissful ignorance of economics."

"And the new treasurer—young Gaines? Is there no hope of his breaking away from the family tradition?"

"Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New Yorker. So far he[p 19] hasn't been here much, except for the quarterly meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin—you perceive that Westmore is a nest of nepotism."

[p 19]

Miss Brent's work among the poor had developed her interest in social problems, and she followed these details attentively.

"Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore's coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any one."

"She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her husband was really the whole company. The official cousins hold only a few shares apiece."

"Perhaps, then, her visit will open her eyes. Who knows but poor Dillon's case may help others—prove a beautiful dispensation, as Mrs. Ogan would say?"

"It does come terribly pat as an illustration of some of the abuses I want to have remedied. The difficulty will be to get the lady's ear. That's her house we're coming to, by the way."

An electric street-lamp irradiated the leafless trees and stone gate-posts of the building before them. Though gardens extended behind it, the house stood so near the pavement that only two short flights of steps intervened between the gate-posts and the portico. Light shone from every window of the pompous rusticated façade—in the turreted "Tuscan villa" style of the 'fifties—and as Miss Brent and Amherst approached,[p 20] their advance was checked by a group of persons who were just descending from two carriages at the door.

[p 20]

The lamp-light showed every detail of dress and countenance in the party, 

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