stealing?"

"Most certainly I do," came the forcible reply.

The girl spoke with a great earnestness, deliberately.

"Then, give them a fair chance."

The magnate stared in sincere astonishment over this absurd, this futile suggestion for his guidance.

"What do you mean?" he vociferated, with rising indignation. There was an added hostility in his demeanor, for it seemed to him that this thief of his goods whom he had brought to justice was daring to trifle with him. He grew wrathful over the suspicion, but a secret curiosity still held his temper within bounds "What do you mean?" he repeated; and now the full force of his strong voice set the room trembling.

The tones of the girl came softly musical, made more delicately resonant to the ear by contrast with the man's roaring.

"Why," she said, very gently, "I mean just this: Give them a living chance to be honest."

"A living chance!" The two words were exploded with dynamic violence. The preposterousness of the advice fired Gilder with resentment so pervasive that through many seconds he found himself unable to express the rage that flamed within him.

The girl showed herself undismayed by his anger.

"Yes," she went on, quietly; "that's all there is to it. Give them a living chance to get enough food to eat, and a decent room to sleep in, and shoes that will keep their feet off the pavement winter mornings. Do you think that any girl wants to steal? Do you think that any girl wants to risk----?"

By this time, however, Gilder had regained his powers of speech, and he interrupted stormily.

"And is this what you have taken up my time for? You want to make a maudlin plea for guilty, dishonest girls, when I thought you really meant to bring me facts."

Nevertheless, Mary went on with her arraignment uncompromisingly. There was a strange, compelling energy in her inflections that penetrated even the pachydermatous officer, so that, though he thought her raving, he let her rave on, which was 

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