"I shall be most happy to
send you a check, but more I cannot undertake," she said.
"Well, that is very good of you; and in any case I am very pleased to
have made your acquaintance. Mr. Payne has told me how ready you are to
help in all charitable undertakings. Now in an ordinary way I don't do
much in this line; my energies have been directed to another channel. I
am not what is generally called a religious woman; I am too broad in my
views to please the orthodox; but, at the same time, religion is in our
present stage essential."
"I am sure religion is much obliged to you," observed Miss Payne. "How
do you and my brother get on?"
"Remarkably well. _I_ think him rather a fanatic; he thinks me a pagan.
But we both have common-sense enough to see that each honestly wishes to
help suffering humanity, and on that broad platform we meet. Mr. Payne
tells me you don't know much of London, Miss Liddell. I can help you to
see some of its more interesting sides. I shall be most happy, though I
am a very busy woman. I am a journalist, and my time is not my own."
"Indeed?" cried Katherine. "You mean you write for newspapers?"
"Yes; that is, I get what crumbs fall from the press_men's_ table. They
get the best work and the best pay; but I can work as well as most of
them, and sometimes mine goes in in place of what some idle,
pleasure-loving scamp has neglected.
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