n a rain and bought some seed and things for the parrot.

Prodigal as had been Father Feeny and his battalion, there was more
grafting needed before the Avenue Girl could take her scarred body
and soul out into the world again. The Probationer offered, but was
refused politely.

"You are a part of the institution now," said the _interne_, with
his eyes on her cap. He was rather afraid of the cap. "I cannot
cripple the institution."

It was the Dummy who solved that question. No one knew how he knew
the necessity or why he had not come forward sooner; but come he did
and would not be denied. The _interne_ went to a member of the staff
about it.

"The fellow works round the house," he explained; "but he's taken a
great fancy to the girl and I hardly know what to do."

"My dear boy," said the staff, "one of the greatest joys in the
world is to suffer for a woman. Let him go to it."

So the Dummy bared his old-young arm--not once, but many times.
Always as the sharp razor nicked up its bit of skin he looked at the
girl and smiled. In the early evening he perched the parrot on his
bandaged arm and sat on the roof or by the fountain in the
courtyard. When the breeze blew strong enough the water flung over
the rim and made little puddles in the hollows of the cement
pavement. Here belated sparrows drank or splashed their dusty
feathers, and the parrot watched them crookedly.

The Avenue Girl grew better with each day, but remained
wistful-eyed. The ward no longer avoided her, though she was never
one of them. One day the Probationer found a new baby in the
children's ward; and, with the passion of maternity that is the real
reason for every good woman's being, she cuddled the mite in her
arms. She visited the nurses in the different wards.

"Just look!" she would say, opening her arms. "If I could only steal
it!"

The Senior, who had once been beautiful and was now calm and placid,
smiled at her. Old Maggie must peer and cry out over the child.
Irish Delia must call down a blessing on it. And so up the ward to
the Avenue Girl; the Probationer laid the baby in her arms.

"Just a minute," she explained. "I'm idling and I have no business
to. Hold it until I give the three o'clocks." Which means the
three-o'clock medicines.

When she came back the Avenue Girl had a new look in her eyes; and
that day the little gleam of hope, that usually died, lasted and
grew.

At last came the day when the alibi was to be brough