five-storied
row built by a speculator to attract fashion many years before.
Fashion ignored the bait.

A small square of paper which had once been white was pasted on the
brick front just over the tarnished door-bell. On it was written in
ink: "Furnished Rooms."

Answering in person the first advertisement she had turned to in the
morning paper Athalie had found this place. There was nothing
attractive about it except the price; but that was sufficient in this
emergency. For the girl would not permit herself to remain another
night in the pretty apartment furnished for her by the man whose
engagement had been announced to her through the daily papers.

And nothing of his would she take with her except the old gun-metal
wrist-watch, and Hafiz, and the barred basket in which Hafiz had
arrived. Everything else she left, her toilet silver, desk-set, her
evening gowns and wraps, gloves, negligees, boudoir caps, slippers,
silk stockings, all her bath linen, everything that she herself had
not purchased out of her own salary--even the little silver cupid
holding aloft his torch, which had been her night-light.

[Illustration: "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a
furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."]

Never again could she illuminate that torch. The other woman must do
that.

* * * * *

She went about quietly from room to room, lowering the shades and
drawing the curtains. There was brilliant colour in her cheeks, an
undimmed beauty in her eyes; pride crowned the golden head held steady
and high on its slender, snowy neck. Only the lips threatened
betrayal; and were bitten as punishment into immobility.

Her small steamer trunk went by a rickety private express for fifty
cents: with the basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled
umbrella she started for her new lodgings.

Michael, opening the lower grille for her, stammered: "God knows why
ye do this, Miss! Th' young Masther'll be afther givin' me the sack av
ye lave the house unbeknowns't him!"

"I can't stay, Michael. He knows I can't. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye Miss! God be good to ye--an' th' pusheen--!" laying a huge
but gentle paw on Hafiz's basket whence a gentle plaint arose.

And so Athalie and Hafiz departed into the world together; and
presently bivouacked; their first etape on life's long journey ending
on the top floor of 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street.

The landlady was a thin, anx