over her, to a restaurant in Tower Street, where a man in a white cap
and apron was baking cakes behind a plate-glass window. She drank the
coffee, but in her excitement left the rest of the breakfast almost
untasted.

"Say," she asked him once, "why are you doing this?"

"I don't know," he answered, "except that it gives me pleasure."

"Pleasure?"

"Yes. It makes me feel as if I were of some use."

She considered this.

"Well," she observed, reviled by the coffee, "you're the queerest
minister I ever saw."

When they had reached the pavement she asked him where they were going.

"To see a friend of mine, and a friend of yours," he told her. "He does
net live far from here."

She was silent again, acquiescing. The rain had stopped, the sun was
peeping out furtively through the clouds, the early loiterers in Dalton
Street stared at them curiously. But Hodder was thinking of that house
whither they were bound with a new gratitude, a new wonder that it
should exist. Thus they came to the sheltered vestibule with its
glistening white paint, its polished name plate and doorknob. The
grinning, hospitable darky appeared in answer to the rector's ring.

"Good morning, Sam," he said; "is Mr. Bentley in?"

Sam ushered them ceremoniously into the library, and gate Marcy
gazed about her with awe, as at something absolutely foreign to her
experience: the New Barrington Hotel, the latest pride of the city,
recently erected at the corner of Tower and Jefferson and furnished
in the French style, she might partially have understood. Had she been
marvellously and suddenly transported and established there, existence
might still have evinced a certain continuity. But this house!..

Mr. Bentley rose from the desk in the corner.

"Oh, it's you, Hodder," he said cheerfully, laying his hand on the
rector's arm. "I was just thinking about you."

"This is Miss Marcy, Mr. Bentley," Hodder said.

Mr. Bentley took her hand and led her to a chair.

"Mr. Hodder knows how fond I am of young women," he said. "I have six of
them upstairs,--so I am never lonely."

Mr. Bentley did not appear to notice that her lips quivered.

Hodder turned his eyes from her face. "Miss Marcy has been lonely," he
explained, "and I thought we might get her a room near by, where she
might see them often. She is going to do embroidery."

"Why, Sally will know of a room," Mr. Bentley replied. "Sam!" he called.

"Yessah--yes, Mistah Ho'ace." Sam appear