she spoke out at once, ‘you yourself show the want of the very experience I look for!’

‘How? what?’ asked the old lady amazed and bristling. Stephen took her hand and held it affectionately as she spoke:

‘You speak of a woman’s wrong-doing, when surely it is a man’s as well. There does not seem to be blame for him who is the more guilty. Only for poor women! � And, Auntie dear, it is such poor women that I should like to help � Not when it is too late, but before! But how can I help unless I know? Good girls cannot tell me, and good women won’t! You yourself, Auntie, didn’t want to speak on the subject; even to me!’

‘But, my dear child, these are not things for unmarried women. I never speak of them myself except with matrons.’