CHAPTER XXI.
"_I TAKE_ reproof to myself," said Mr.Dinneford.

"As one of your board of managers, I ought to have regarded my position as more than a nominal one.

I understand better now what you said about the ten or twenty of our rich and influential men who, if they could be induced to look away for a brief period from their great enterprises, and concentrate thought and effort upon the social evils, abuse of justice, violations of law, poverty and suffering that exist here and in other parts of our city, would inaugurate reforms and set beneficent agencies at work that would soon produce marvelous changes for good." "Ah, yes," sighed Mr.Paulding.

"If we had for just a little while the help of our strong men--the men of brains and will and money, the men who are used to commanding success, whose business it is to organize forces and set impediments at defiance, the men whose word is a kind of law to the people--how quickly, and as if by magic, would all this change! "But we cannot now hope to get this great diversion in our favor.

Until we do we must stand in the breach, small in numbers and weak though we are--must go on doing our best and helping when we may.