eakfast. My own
coffee is dripping in the percolator. Let me give you a cup," he said.

"Why--if it's not too much trouble, sir----"

"This way, Miss," he said, hurrying on before, and leading Helen to a cozy
little room at the back. This corresponded with the housekeeper's
sitting-room and Helen believed it must be Mr. Lawdor's own apartment.

He laid a small cloth with a flourish. He set forth a silver breakfast
set. He did everything neatly and with an alacrity that surprised Helen in
one so evidently decrepit.

"A chop, now, Miss? Or a rasher?" he asked, pointing to an array of
electric appliances on the sideboard by which a breakfast might be "tossed
up" in a hurry.

"No, no," Helen declared. "Not so early. This nice coffee and these
delicious rolls are enough until I have earned more."

"Earned more, Miss?" he asked, in surprise.

"By exercise," she explained. "I am going to take a good tramp. Then I
shall come back as hungry as a mountain lion."

"The family breakfasts at nine, Miss," said the butler, bowing. "But if
you are an early riser you will always find something tidy here in my
room, Miss. You are very welcome."

She thanked him and went out into the hall again. The footman in
livery--very sleepy and tousled as yet--was unchaining the front door. A
yawning maid was at work in one of the parlors with a duster. She stared
at Helen in amazement, but Gregson stood stiffly at attention as the
visitor went forth into the daylight.

"My, how funny city people live!" thought Helen Morrell. "I don't believe
I ever could stand it. Up till all hours, and then no breakfast until
nine. _What_ a way to live!

"And there must be twice as many servants as there are members of the
family---- Why! more than that! And all that big house to get lost in,"
she added, glancing up at it as she started off upon her walk.

She turned the first corner and went through a side street toward the
west. This was not a business side street. There were several tall
apartment hotels interspersed with old houses.

She came to Fifth Avenue--"the most beautiful street in the world." It had
been swept and garnished by a horde of white-robed men since two o'clock.
On this brisk October morning, from the Washington Arch to 110th Street,
it was as clean as a whistle.

She walked uptown. At Thirty-fourth and Forty-second streets the crosstown
traffic had already begun. She passed the new department stores, already
opening their ey