I met the doctor coming out of the apartment downstairs, so in common decency I went immediately to enquire who was sick, and carried along a glass of chicken jelly.

The woman who opened the door was rather rude," she finished with a sigh.

"I don't believe such a thing had ever happened to her before in the whole course of her life." Trent gave her a tender glance across the coffee service.
"Probably not," he admitted, "but I wouldn't waste my jelly if I were you." "I sha'n't" she determined sadly, "and that's the thing I miss most of all--visiting the sick." "You might devote yourself to the hospitals--there are plenty of them it seems." Her resignation, however, was complete, and she showed no impulse to reach out actively again.

"It wouldn't be the same, my dear--I don't want strange paupers but real friends.

Do you know," she added, with a despair that was almost abject, "I was counting up this morning the people I might speak to if I met them in the street, and I got them in easily on the fingers of one hand.