ave had it. Miss Nicholas..."

Mr. Faucitt paused to puff at his cigar. Sally's brother Fillmore
suppressed a yawn and glanced at his watch. Sally continued to lean
forward raptly. She knew how happy it made the old gentleman to deliver
a formal speech; and though she wished the subject had been different,
she was prepared to listen indefinitely.

"Miss Nicholas," resumed Mr. Faucitt, lowering his cigar, "... But why,"
he demanded abruptly, "do I call her Miss Nicholas?"

"Because it's her name," hazarded the taller Murphy.

Mr. Faucitt eyed him with disfavour. He disapproved of the marvellous
brethren on general grounds because, himself a resident of years
standing, he considered that these transients from the vaudeville stage
lowered the tone of the boarding-house; but particularly because the one
who had just spoken had, on his first evening in the place, addressed
him as "grandpa."

"Yes, sir," he said severely, "it is her name. But she has another name,
sweeter to those who love her, those who worship her, those who have
watched her with the eye of sedulous affection through the three years
she has spent beneath this roof, though that name," said Mr. Faucitt,
lowering the tone of his address and descending to what might almost be
termed personalities, "may not be familiar to a couple of dud acrobats
who have only been in the place a week-end, thank heaven, and are off
to-morrow to infest some other city. That name," said Mr. Faucitt,
soaring once more to a loftier plane, "is Sally. Our Sally. For three
years our Sally has flitted about this establishment like--I choose the
simile advisedly--like a ray of sunshine. For three years she has
made life for us a brighter, sweeter thing. And now a sudden access of
worldly wealth, happily synchronizing with her twenty-first birthday, is
to remove her from our midst. From our midst, ladies and gentlemen,
but not from our hearts. And I think I may venture to hope, to
prognosticate, that, whatever lofty sphere she may adorn in the future,
to whatever heights in the social world she may soar, she will still
continue to hold a corner in her own golden heart for the comrades of
her Bohemian days. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our hostess, Miss
Sally Nicholas, coupled with the name of our old friend, her brother
Fillmore."

Sally, watching her brother heave himself to his feet as the cheers died
away, felt her heart beat a little faster with anticipation. Fillmore
was a