error that was bleaching her face; fighting the dread
which was never quite asleep within her brain--the dread of that old
stone demijohn standing in the corner of the kitchen, which for all
her broken pleading Young Denny Bolton had refused with a strange,
unexplained stubbornness to remove--until that rising terror drove her
away from the pane.

One wide-flung arm swept the stack of neatly folded patterns in a
rustling storm to the floor as she pushed her way out from the
narrow space between table edge and sill. The girl did not heed
them or the lamp, that rocked drunkenly with the tottering table.
She had forgotten everything--the thick white square of cardboard,
even the stooped old man in the small back room--in the face of the
overwhelming fear that reason could not fight down. Only the
peculiarly absolute silence that came with the sudden cessation of his
droning monotone checked the panic haste of her first rush. With one
hand clutching the knob of the outer door she turned back.

John Anderson was sitting twisted about on his high stool, gazing
after her in infantile, perplexed reproach, his long fingers clasped
loosely about the almost finished figure over which he had been
toiling. As the girl turned back toward him his eyes wandered down to
it and he began to shake his head slowly, vacantly, hopelessly. A low
moaning whimper stirred her lips; then the hand tight-clenched over
the knob slackened. She ran swiftly across to him.

"What is it, dear?" Her voice broke, husky with fright and pity.
"Tell me--what is the matter? Won't it come right tonight?"

With shaking hands she leaned over him, smoothing the shining hair. At
the touch of her fingers he looked up, staring with pleading
uncertainty into her quivering face before he shook his head.

"It--it don't smile," he complained querulously. His fingers groped
lightly over the small face of clay. "I--I can't make it smile--like
the rest."

Sudden terror contorted the thin features, a sheer ecstacy of terror
as white-lipped as that which marred the face of the girl who bent
above him.

"Maybe I've forgotten how she smiled!" he whispered fearfully. "Maybe
I'll never be able to----"

Dryad's eyes flitted desperately around the room, along the shelves
laden with those countless figures--all white and finely slender, all
upturned of face. Again a little impotent gasp choked her; then, eyes
filling hotly at that poignantly wistful smile which edged the li