these people instead of burning them, and who can tell how many starving minds we may make better, and happier, in this simple way, and with very little effort on our part?"

"Can they read?" It was Grace, an always practical individual, who spoke.

"If they can't, they can learn," responded Miss Stone. "It will be an incentive to their best efforts in every way."

Katherine Bryant leaned forward, her face flushed, and her eyes shining. "Girls," she said, "it's perfectly beautiful. We'll send all of our own magazines and illustrated papers, all we can collect from other sources, and we'll raise money to buy new ones. I don't know of any other way in which we can do so much good."

Plan after plan was suggested, and at last it was decided that the committee should write to a society in Boston which did similar work, and ask for the names and addresses of twenty-five persons who were in need of reading matter. These could be removed from the lists of the Boston society, as the Committee on Literary Extension of the Detroit Young Woman's Club would attend to their needs in future.

In due time the list arrived, with a few particulars opposite each name. The committee was again called together, and the chairman gave each girl five names.

"Katherine dear," she said, "there are some more names in the little note-book that is up-stairs in my desk. They are all boys who have left the reform school. A friend of mine, who is one of the directors, gave them to me, and there are only four or five. Would you mind taking those in addition to your own?"

"Not at all," and Katherine ran up to Margaret's desk.

"Wonder where she keeps her note-book! Oh, here it is, and here is the list." She copied busily. "One, two, three, four; that's all. No, here's another on the next page," and at the end of her slip she wrote: "Robert Ross, Athol, Spink Co., South Dakota." The work was taken up in earnest and many magazines were collected within the next few days. A strict account was kept of everything sent out, and occasionally the girls met to compare notes.

Margaret came home one day and found Mrs. Boyce waiting for her. "My dear," said the lady, "I've lost an address that troubles me, and I think it may have been on the card that I gave you the other day."

"I'll see," replied Margaret, "I copied them all that very afternoon." She took her note-book out of her chatelaine bag and handed it to Mrs. Boyce. "Which one is it?"

The elder lady laughed in a relieved way. "This last one," she answered. "Robert Ross. He's my favourite nephew, off on a shooting trip, and he wants me to write to him. He'd never forgive me, if I didn't. Just give me a card, and I will try not to be so careless again."

Meanwhile Katherine was absorbed in addressing magazines with great vigour. She had found a pile of back numbers in the attic and was trying to divide them properly. The household journals went to a woman in Kansas, fifty miles from a city, others she mailed to a boy of sixteen who was on a farm in Minnesota, and a copy of a popular magazine was addressed to Mr. Robert Ross. At the top of each one she had written, "From Miss Katherine Bryant, Jefferson Ave., Detroit."

A short time afterward, she received a pathetic letter from the woman to whom she had sent the household magazines. "I married for love," she wrote, "and have never been sorry, but I miss many of the things to which I was accustomed in my eastern home. A magazine is an unusual thing upon a Kansas farm, and with all my heart I thank you for the great pleasure you have given a lonely woman."

Mindful of the fact that one of the objects of the committee was to get into correspondence with its beneficiaries, Katherine sat down to write an encouraging note to her and also to others, but before she had finished the postman brought another letter.

It had been mailed in South Dakota. The paper was the white ruled variety, to be found in country stores, but the penmanship was clear and business-like.

"My dear Miss Bryant," the letter began, "I am sure I don't know what good angel possessed you to send me a copy of my favourite magazine, but I am none the less grateful and only too happy to acknowledge it. I am hurt, but the doctor thinks not seriously, and that I shall be all right in a few weeks. The magazine which you so kindly sent has given me the first pleasant day I have had for some time.

"I should be most happy to receive a letter from you, but of course that is too much for a stranger to ask, even though he be ill and alone.

"Sincerely and gratefully yours,
"Robert Ross."

Katherine knit her pretty brows, and read it over again. "It's no queerer than the one I got from the Kansas woman," she decided. "At any rate, they both seem glad to get them and they shall have some more."

She wrote very kindly to Robert Ross, inquiring into the particulars of his injury, and whether or not he lived on a farm. She said he was very fortunate, if he did indeed live in the country, because so many people were pining away and dying in the great cities. The magazine she had sent was one of her own favourites also, and she would send the next number as soon as it came out. In the meantime, she hoped the package of papers she was sending in the same mail would prove acceptable.

Out on the porch of the Athol House, Mr. Ross sat in the sun and reviled creation in general. It was a palatial hotel—for that region—but he seemed unmindful of his advantages.

"Oh, confound it," he groaned, "why couldn't I have shot some other idiot instead of myself? I ought not to be trusted with a gun! Right in the height of the prairie chicken season too, and those other fellows, three of them, off bagging every bit of the game! I hope they won't forget to come back this way, and take me home with them! Emperor, old fellow, it's hard luck. Isn't it?"

The Irish setter, who had been addressed, came and put his cold nose into Mr. Ross's hand. The well-bred dog had refused to desert his wounded master, even for the charms of prairie chickens, and touched by his dumb devotion Ross permitted him to stay. Long conversations were held every day, and Emperor told Ross as plainly as a dog could, that if it hadn't been for that dreadful flesh wound they would be having a fine time in the fields, capturing more game than any other dog and man in the party.

When the landlord returned from the post-office he brought a letter which Emperor carried in triumph to his master. Ross read it in surprise. Who Miss Bryant might be, he did not know, but she wrote a pleasant letter, and it was certainly kind of her to notice him.

He decided that the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of the magazine must have been extremely well done. He thought of the unknown fair one for some time, and then concluded to write again. He was non-committal about himself, fearing to spoil any delusion she might have been labouring under when she sent the magazine.

When Katherine received the second letter, she felt several pricks of conscience. It wasn't a nice thing she was doing, and she knew it. But a person shouldn't let squeamishness interfere with philanthropic work, so she answered promptly.

She drew him into a discussion of an article on "The Desirability of Annexing Canada to the United States," and he criticised it harshly. He forgot to tell her that he was a Canadian by birth and a loyal subject of the King. His point of view was naturally distorted, and she replied with some spirit, dealing very patiently,