had
reached the next corner.

"Everything's topsy-turvy," said he, coming alongside. "Here you are
frivolously walking downtown with a dog. Usually at this time you are
most earnestly walking uptown, and not a sign of a dog as far as the eye
can see. What on earth's happened?"

"Oh, how do you do?" said she, apparently not displeased to find herself
thus surprised from the rear. "I too have a mad kind of feeling, as
though the world had gone upside down. Don't be amazed if I suddenly
clutch out at you to keep from falling. But the name of it--of this
feeling--is having a holiday. Mr. Dayne went to New York at 12.20."

"Ah, I see. When the cat's away?"

"Not at all. I am taking this richly earned vacation by his express
command."

"In that case, why mightn't we turn about and go a real walk--cease
picking our way through the noisome hum of commerce and set brisk
evening faces toward the open road--and all that? You and I and the dog.
What is his name? Rollo, I suppose?"

"Rollo! No! Or Tray or Fido, either! His name is Bee, short for
Behemoth--and I think that a very captivating little name, don't you?
His old name, the one I bought him by, was Fred--_Fred_!--but already he
answers to the pretty name of Bee as though he were born to it. Watch."
She pursed her lips and gave a whistle, unexpectedly loud and clear.
"Here, Bee, here! Here, sir! Look, look. He turned around _right away_!"

West laughed. "Wonderfully gifted dog. But I believe you mentioned
taking a walk in the November air. I can only say that physicians
strongly recommend it, valetudinarians swear by it--"

"Oh--if I only could!--but I simply cannot think of it. Do you know, I
never have a holiday without wondering how on earth I could have gotten
on another day without it. You can't imagine what loads of things I've
done since two o'clock, and loads remain. The very worst job of them all
still hangs by a hair over my head. I must cross here."

West said that evidently her conception of a holiday was badly mixed. As
they walked he paid for her society by incessantly taking off his hat;
nearly everybody they met spoke to them, many more to him than to her.
Though both of them had been born in that city and grown up with it, the
girl had only lately come to know West well, and she did not know him
very well now. All the years hitherto she had joined in the general
admiration of him shyly and from a distance, the pretty waiting-lady's
attitude toward