All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story. Walter Besant

in a few salons. When all the world laughs, the perfection of humanity will have been reached, and the comedy will have been played out.

      "It is a beautiful game," said Angela – meaning lawn tennis, not the comedy of humanity. "It requires a great deal of skill and exercises a vast quantity of muscles; and it costs nothing. Asphalt makes a perfect court, as I know very well." She blushed, because she was thinking of the Newnham courts. "We shall be able to play there whenever it does not rain. When it does, there is the glass-house."

      "What are you going to do in the glass-house?" asked Harry; "throw stones at other people's windows? That is said to be very good exercise."

      "I am going to set up a gymnasium for the girls."

      Rebekah stared, but said nothing. This was revolutionary indeed.

      "If they please, the girls can bring their friends; we will have a course of gymnastics as well as a school for lawn tennis. You see, Mr. Goslett, that I have not forgotten what you said once."

      "What was that, Miss Kennedy? It is very good of you to remember anything that I have said. Do you mean that I once, accidentally, said a thing worth hearing?"

      "Yes: you said that money was not wanted here so much as work. That is what I remembered. If you can afford it, you may work with us, for there is a great deal to do."

      "I can afford it for a time."

      "We shall work again from half-past eleven until one. Then we shall stop for dinner."

      "They bring their own dinner," said Rebekah. "It takes them five minutes to eat it. You will have to give them tea."

      "No: I shall give them dinner too. And because growing girls are dainty and sometimes cannot fancy things, I think a good way will be for each of them, even the youngest, to take turns in ordering the dinner and seeing it prepared."

      Rebekah groaned. What profits could stand up against such lavish expenditure as this?

      "After an hour for dinner we shall go to work again. I have thought a good deal about the afternoon, which is the most tedious part of the day, and I think the best thing will be to have reading aloud."

      "Who is to read?" cried Rebekah.

      "We shall find somebody or other. Tea at five, and work from six to seven. That is my programme."

      "Then, Miss Kennedy," cried her forewoman, "you will be a ruined woman in a year."

      "No" – she shook her head with her gracious smile – "no, I hope not. And I think you will find that we shall be very far from ruined. Have a little faith. What do you think, Nelly?"

      "Oh, I think it beautiful!" she replied, with a gaze of soft worship in her limpid eyes. "It is so beautiful that it must be a dream, and cannot last."