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It was the psychological moment for ungrudged giving. Unfortunately, no mechanism has yet been devised to take full advantage of such a phenomenon.

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Patricia Weybourn leaned against the back wall in a crowded theatre in New Plymouth, and listened to the speakers whose eloquence moved her not at all.

Her expression was hard. Her eyes glittered coldly, and her lips curled in a sneer as the representatives of several local bodies grandiloquently presented cheques to the common relief fund amid applause. She detected the eternal personal motive in every speech and action of the executives and the donors—the little self-glorifications which are instinctive in the human race.

She smiled cynically when a speaker appealed to his audiences to “forget our little snobbishnesses in the present need for united effort”; and when the same speaker announced that Mrs. Langham—“Mrs. Percival Quesne Langham—has consented to act as chairwoman of the No. 2 Committee”—she laughed and drew the attention of many scandalised eyes.

Mrs. Langham, the most snobbish of them all! The woman who bled her husband white that she might entertain at bridge three times a week and motor resplendently to the houses of stylish society which detested her but considered it unwise to say so!

Mrs. Percival Quesne Langham, who pushed her way unblushingly into every public movement, and headed every subscription list with her long-suffering husband’s cheques; whose principal business in life seemed to be the broadcasting of scurrilous rumours, who boasted of blue blood, and who referred to New Zealanders as “colonials.”

It was so funny as to be almost tragic, thought the girl. Very well! If Mrs. Percival Quesne Langham could forget her “snobbishness,” so could Patricia Weybourn. They would work together in