fore she had time to be frightened, Mr. Smith
appeared,--whence, she knew not,--scattered the gang like chaff, and
collaring two of the human hyenas, kicked them, with deliberate,
ponderous, alternate kicks, until they writhed in ineffable agony. When
he let them crawl away, she turned to him and thanked him warmly,
looking very pretty now, with the color in her cheeks. But Mr. Smith
answered no word. He stared over her head, grew red in the face,
fidgeted nervously, but held his peace until his eyes fell on a rotund
Teuton passing by.

"Say, Dutchy!" he roared. The German stood aghast. "I ain't got nothing
to write with!" thundered Mr. Smith, looking him in the eye. And then
the man of his word passed on his way.

And so the summer went on, and the two correspondents chatted silently
from window to window, hid from sight of all the world below by the
friendly cornice. And they looked out over the roof and saw the green of
Tompkins Square grow darker and dustier as the months went on.

Mr. Smith was given to Sunday trips into the suburbs, and he never came
back without a bunch of daisies or black-eyed Susans or, later, asters
or golden-rod for the little seamstress. Sometimes, with a sagacity rare
in his sex, he brought her a whole plant, with fresh loam for potting.

He gave her also a reel in a bottle, which, he wrote, he had "maid"
himself, and some coral, and a dried flying-fish that was something
fearful to look upon, with its sword-like fins and its hollow eyes. At
first she could not go to sleep with that flying-fish hanging on the
wall.

But he surprised the little seamstress very much one cool September
evening, when he shoved this letter along the cornice:--

[Illustration: Handwritten letter]

Respected and Honored Madam:

Having long and vainly sought an opportunity to convey to you
the expression of my sentiments, I now avail myself of the
privilege of epistolary communication to acquaint you with the
fact that the Emotions, which you have raised in my breast, are
those which should point to Connubial Love and Affection rather
than to simple Friendship. In short, Madam, I have the Honor to
approach you with a Proposal, the acceptance of which will fill
me with ecstatic Gratitude, and enable me to extend to you those
Protecting Cares, which the Matrimonial Bond makes at once the
Duty and the Privilege of him, who would, at no distant date,
lead to the