He, therefore, speedily overcame his initial reluctance and agreed to his daughter’s strange proposal. He was willing to make that much of an attempt toward the establishment of relations with the class he befriended in print. It was an approach which, if not altogether free of condescension, was still kindly meant.

Hester was greatly delighted with his ready compliance with her request, and for two weeks was busy preparing the house for the concert. A couple of charwomen were turned loose to thoroughly clean the great room. But before long, Mr. Raymount realized that no amount of cleaning could remove the dirty look of the place, so he committed the dingy room to painters and paperhangers. Under their hands it was wonderful to see how it gradually took on a gracious, lighter, and more colourful appearance.

The day for the concert was finally set for a week off, and Hester began to invite her poorer friends and neighbours to spend that evening at her father’s house, when her mother would give them tea and she would sing to them. The married women were to bring their husbands if they would come, and each young woman might bring a friend. Most of the men turned up their noses at the invitation, but were nevertheless inclined to go out of curiosity. Some spoke doubtfully—they might be able to go, they were not sure. Some seemed to regard consent as a favour, if not a condescension. Of these, however, two or three were hampered by the uncertainty as to the redemption of their best clothes from the pawnbroker.

In requesting the presence of some of the small tradespeople, Hester asked it as a favour, begging their assistance in entertaining their poorer neighbours. And so put, the invitation was heartily accepted.

In one case at least, however, she forgot this precaution. The consequence was that the wife of a certain small furniture-broker began to fume once she saw that she was in the presence of the riffraff of the neighbourhood. While she was drinking her second cup of tea her eyes kept roving. As she set it down, she caught sight of Long Tim, but a fortnight out of prison. She rose at once, made her way out fanning herself vigorously, and hurried home boiling over with wrath. The woman was not of a bad sort, only her dignity was hurt.

The hall and gallery were brilliantly lighted, and the room itself looked charming—at least in the eyes of those who had been so long watching the process of its resurrection. Tea was ready before the company began to arrive, and was served by men and women of the tradespeople. The meal went off well, with a good buzz of conversation. The only unpleasant thing was that several of the guests, mindful of their cubs at home, slipped large pieces of cake into their pockets to take to them. But this must not be judged without a just regard to their ways of thinking. It was, in reality, not a tenth part so bad as many of the ways in which well-bred persons appropriate slices of other people’s cakes without once suspecting they are in the same category.