Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/355

Rh of our road," she thought; "how impertinent of her to address me!"

The other returned the glance with interest. "You are the person who keeps a lodging-house down our street," she looked; then turned her shoulder.

"Excuse me. I didn't see whom I was addressing," she said.

"It isn't a drag to have to care for a man who loves you or your own child," Mrs. Dickson continued softly. "You can't imagine what an inexplicable feeling of happiness it gives you to even put on buttons and fold away their things, and to feel that you are the person who keeps warm and cheerful the little house that contains your treasures."

"I can't, indeed," a member muttered sadly.

"We are wandering from the subject of our meeting," the president said, smiling. "Mrs. Dickson, you will have a bad effect on our members if you become sentimental. Remember all the women who have no husbands, the widows who keep houses, and unmarried ladies who do their work side by side with men, yet do not get their advantages; and, indeed, the wives who keep their husbands, as often