ur Square is conservative, not to say distrustful in its bearing toward
innovations. Thornsen's Elite Restaurant has always sufficed for our
inner cravings. We are, I suppose, too old to change. Nor does Harvey
Wheelwright exercise an inspirational sway over us. We let the little
millionairess and her Washington Square importation pretty well alone.
She advertised feebly in the "Where to Eat" columns, catching a few
stray outlanders, but for the most part people didn't come. Until the
first of the month, that is. Then too many came. They brought their
bills with them.

Evening after evening Barbran and Phil Stacey sat in the cellar almost
or quite alone. So far as I could judge from my occasional visits of
patronage (Barbran furnished excellent sweet cider and cakes for late
comers), they endured the lack of custom with fortitude, not to say
indifference. But in the mornings her soft eyes looked heavy, and once,
as she was passing my bench deep in thought, I surprised a look of blank
terror on her face. One can understand that even a millionaire's
daughter might spend sleepless nights brooding over a failure. But that
look of mortal dread! How well I know it! How often have I seen it,
preceding some sordid or brave tragedy of want and wretchedness in Our
Square! What should it mean, though, on Barbran's sunny face? Puzzling
over the question I put it to the Bonnie Lassie.

"Read me a riddle, O Lady of the Wise Heart. Of what is a child of
fortune, young, strong, and charming, afraid?"

At the time we were passing the house in which the insecticidal Angel of
Death takes carefully selected and certified lodgers.

"I know whom you mean," said the Bonnie Lassie, pointing up to the
little dormer window which was Barbran's outlook on life. "Interpret me
a signal. What do you see up there?"

"It appears to be a handkerchief pasted to the window," said I adjusting
my glasses.

"Upside down," said the Bonnie Lassie.

"How can a handkerchief be upside down?" I inquired, in what was
intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness.

Contempt was all that it brought me. "Metaphorically, of course! It's a
signal of distress."

"In what distress can Barbran be?"

"In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the roof
in Our Square?"

"She's doing that just to get into our atmosphere. She told me so
herself. A millionaire's daughter--"

"Do millionaires' daughters wash their own handkerchiefs and paste them