But she remembered the clean little round in her face, out of which eyes and mouth looked merrily, while she talked rough slang; the same fun and daring,—­nothing worse,—­were in this child’s face, that might be in another’s saying prettier words.  How could she help her words, hearing nothing but devil’s Dutch around her all the time?  Children do not make the language they are born into.  And the face that could be simply merry, telling such a tale as that,—­what sort of bright little immortality must it be the outlook of?

Hazel meant to try her hour.

* * * * *

This is one of my last chapters.  I can only tell you now they began,—­these real folks,—­the work their real living led them up to.  Perhaps some other time we may follow it on.  If I were to tell you now a finished story of it, I should tell a story ahead of the world.

I can show you what six weeks brought it to.  I can show you them fairly launched in what may grow to a beautiful private charity,—­an “Insecution,”—­a broad social scheme,—­a millennium; at any rate, a life work, change and branch as it may, for these girls who have found out, in their girlhood, that there is genuine living, not mere “playing pretend,” to be done in the world.  But you cannot, in little books of three hundred pages, see things through.  I never expected or promised to do that.  The threescore years and ten themselves, do not do it.

It turned into regular Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.  Three girls at first, then six, then less again,—­sometimes only one or two; until they gradually came up to and settled at, an average of nine or ten.

The first Saturday they took them as they were.  The next time they gave them a stick of candy each, the first thing, then Hazel’s fingers were sticky, and she proposed the wash-basin all round, before they went up-stairs.  The bright tin bowl was ready in the sink, and a clean round towel hung beside; and with some red and white soap-balls, they managed to fascinate their dirty little visitors into three clean pairs of hands, and three clean faces as well.

The candy and the washing grew to be a custom; and in three weeks’ time, watching for a hot day and having it luckily on a Saturday, they ventured upon instituting a whole bath, in big round tubs, in the back shed-room, where a faucet came in over a wash bench, and a great boiler was set close by.

They began with a foot-paddle, playing pond, and sailing chips at the same time; then Luclarion told them they might have tubs full, and get in all over and duck, if they liked; and children who may hate to be washed, nevertheless are always ready for a duck and a paddle.  So Luclarion superintended the bath-room; Diana helped her; and Desire and Hazel tended the shop.  Luclarion invented a shower-bath with a dipper and a colander; then the wet, tangled hair had to be combed,—­a climax which she had secretly aimed at with a great longing, from the beginning; and doing this, she contrived with carbolic soap and a separate suds, and a bit of sponge, to give the neglected little heads a most salutary dressing.