ed street and watch the
different faces of the men and women as they pass by--grey faces, drab
faces, white faces, yellow faces, faces sad and cross, and lined and
dull, faces by the thousand blank of any expression at all, and then
here and there, at rare, rare intervals, a _live_ face that speaks. You
spy it afar off--a face with shining eyes, with lips curled ready for
laughter, with arching brows, and tilted chin, and every little line and
wrinkle speaking of _life_.

That face is as a magnet to attract not only eyes, but hearts into the
bargain; the passers-by, rouse themselves from their lethargy to smile
back in sympathy, and pass on their way wafting mental messages of
affection.--"What a _dear_ girl!" they cry, or "woman," or "man," as the
case may be. "What a charming face! I should like to know that girl."
And the girl with the happy face goes on _her_ way, all the happier for
the kindly, thoughts by which she is pursued.

When strangers were first introduced to Pixie O'Shaughnessy they
invariably catalogued her as a plain-looking girl; when they had known
her for an hour they began to feel that they had been mistaken, and at
the end of a week they would have been prepared to quarrel with their
best friend if he had echoed their own first judgment. The charm of her
personality soon overpowered the physical deficiency.

Stanor Vaughan was as yet too young and prosperous to realise the real
reason of Pixie's attraction. He decided that it was attributable to
her trim, jaunty little figure and the unusual fashion in which she
dressed her hair. Also she wore a shade of bright flame-coloured silk
which made a special appeal to his artistic eye, and he approved of the
simple, graceful fashion of its cut.

"Looks as if she'd had enough stuff!" he said to himself, with all a
man's dislike of the prevailing hobble. He pondered how to open the
conversation, asking himself uneasily what punishment the girl would
award him for his _faux pas_ of the afternoon. Would she be haughty?
She didn't look the kind of little thing to be haughty! Would she be
cold and aloof? Somehow, glancing at the irregular, piquant little
profile, he could not imagine her aloof. Would she snap? Ah! Now he
was not so certain. He saw distinct possibilities of snap, and then,
just as he determined that he really must make the plunge and get it
over, Pixie leaned confidentially toward him and said below her breath--

"_Please_ tal