oom upstairs.

"I don't mind heat. I--I suppose I don't think about it," said the
roomer, rather surprised at himself.

Reginald, having finished his chestnut, squeaked for another. The roomer
started.

"Just Reginald--my ground-squirrel." Sidney was skinning a nut with her
strong white teeth. "That's another thing I should have told you. I'm
afraid you'll be sorry you took the room."

The roomer smiled in the shadow.

"I'm beginning to think that YOU are sorry."

She was all anxiety to reassure him:--

"It's because of Reginald. He lives under my--under your bureau. He's
really not troublesome; but he's building a nest under the bureau,
and if you don't know about him, it's rather unsettling to see a paper
pattern from the sewing-room, or a piece of cloth, moving across the
floor."

Mr. Le Moyne thought it might be very interesting. "Although, if there's
nest-building going on, isn't it--er--possible that Reginald is a lady
ground-squirrel?"

Sidney was rather distressed, and, seeing this, he hastened to add that,
for all he knew, all ground-squirrels built nests, regardless of sex.
As a matter of fact, it developed that he knew nothing whatever of
ground-squirrels. Sidney was relieved. She chatted gayly of the tiny
creature--of his rescue in the woods from a crowd of little boys, of his
restoration to health and spirits, and of her expectation, when he was
quite strong, of taking him to the woods and freeing him.

Le Moyne, listening attentively, began to be interested. His quick mind
had grasped the fact that it was the girl's bedroom he had taken. Other
things he had gathered that afternoon from the humming sewing-machine,
from Sidney's businesslike way of renting the little room, from the
glimpse of a woman in a sunny window, bent over a needle. Genteel
poverty was what it meant, and more--the constant drain of disheartened,
middle-aged women on the youth and courage of the girl beside him.

K. Le Moyne, who was living his own tragedy those days, what with
poverty and other things, sat on the doorstep while Sidney talked, and
swore a quiet oath to be no further weight on the girl's buoyant spirit.
And, since determining on a virtue is halfway to gaining it, his voice
lost its perfunctory note. He had no intention of letting the Street
encroach on him. He had built up a wall between himself and the rest of
the world, and he would not scale it. But he held no grudge against it.
Let others get what they