i on a shabby console table, and a large and
dirty white sheepskin rug. Passing along a short landing, the young man
began the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with a
carpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut up
into strips of the width of the narrow space between the wall and the
handrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud on
oilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on a
small landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylight
above the well of the stairs.

"Come in," a girl's voice called.

The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glow
of firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond the
roofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of the
single window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the old
dark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner,
hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl's
bedroom.

The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered round
table and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair before
the fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and he
looked down at something that had muffled the sound of his steps as
he had approached her.

"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he asked
cheerfully.

The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but on
the hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug.

"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It's
much warmer for my feet."

"Very kind of Mrs. Hepburn. Well, how are you feeling to-day, old girl?"

"Better, thanks, Ed."

"That's the style. You'll be yourself again soon. Daisy says you've been
out to-day?"

"Yes, I went for a walk. But not far; I went to the Museum and then sat
down. You're early, aren't you?"

He turned away to get a chair, from which he had to move a mass of
tissue-paper patterns and buckram linings. He brought it to the rug.

"Yes. I stopped last night late to cash up for Vedder, so he's staying
to-night. Turn and turn about. Well, tell us all about it, Bess."

Their faces were red in the firelight. Hers had the prettiness that the
first glance almost exhausts, the prettiness, amazing in its quantity,
that one sees for a moment under the light of the street lamps when shops
and offices c