ld friend of yours the other day."

"Who?"

"Laura Murdock."

The girl started.

"Laura!" she exclaimed. "Why, I haven't seen her for months--only once
since she went to Denver and fell in love with a newspaper man. Wasn't
that perfectly crazy? I was always afraid she would do something of the
sort. There is a sentimental streak in her, you know. I did all I could
to dissuade her, but it was no use. She had made up her mind to be
good, and that was the end of it. Such a pity! She was getting on so
fine. You know, of course, that she has cut out Brockton, and the rest
of the crowd. I've quite lost sight of her. Where did you see her?"

The agent's thin lips then tightened into a grim smile.

"You'd hardly know her now," he said.

The girl looked inquiringly at him.

"Not know her--why?"

Hesitatingly he went on:

"Wal--you know how it is when things don't seem to go just right. Laura
never was over strong with the managers unless she had a good pull, and
now she's shifting for herself, they've gone back on her. She got a
fairly good part at the beginning of the season, but she didn't make
good. The critics hit her pretty hard, and the manager gave her two
weeks' notice. Since then she's been playing such parts as she can get,
but I guess she ain't averaged fifteen dollars a week the whole blessed
winter."

"Where is she now?"

"At Mrs. Farley's. She has a small room there. I think she pays four
dollars a week--when she pays it. You know Mrs. Farley's. I'm stopping
there, too. It ain't exactly swell, but it's better than the park,
especially on cold nights."

Elfie turned pale under her cosmetics. Too well she knew the horrors of
poverty. She was shocked to hear that one of her own sisterhood should
be reduced to such straits as these. The lightning had struck
uncomfortably near home. Besides she had always been fond of Laura.
Yes, she knew Mrs. Farley's, a shrewish Irishwoman, who kept a cheap
theatrical boarding house in Forty ----th Street. Ten years ago, in the
days when she was a stage beginner, struggling to make both ends meet,
she had lived there and as she looked back on those days of self denial
and humiliation she shuddered.

"I'm awfully sorry," she said, her voice trembling from unaffected
emotion. "Tell Laura you met me and say I had no idea of it. Tell her
I'll come and see her the very first opportunity. Goodbye."

A smile and a nod, and she disappeared, swallowed up in the vortex of
h