s on the sidewalk, to direct her
to a district telegraph office, and was referred to one just around the
corner. To this always open place she walked as rapidly as possible, to
find a sleepy-looking young woman just settling herself at the desk,
having at that moment relieved the man who had been on duty all night.

"Can you give me a messenger right away?" she demanded.

"In about fifteen or twenty minutes we'll have one in," said the girl.
"We don't keep but two on duty at this hour, and they're both out, and
there's one call ahead of you. Take a seat, won't you?"

But Phillida saw in her imagination Mrs. Martin badgered by Eleanor
Bowyer, and heard again the grievous cry of the frightened and suffering
Tommy. After all, she could only make the matter understood imperfectly
by means of a message. Why should she stand on delicacy in a matter of
life and death? She reflected that there was no animosity between her
and Millard, and she recalled his figure as he reached his hand to her
that fatal evening, and she remembered the emotion in his voice when he
said, "Part friends?" She resolved to go in person to the Graydon.

The entrance to the apartment building displayed a good deal of that
joint-stock grandeur which goes for much and yet costs each individual
householder but little. Despite her anxiety, Phillida was so far
impressed by the elaborate bronze mantelpiece over the great hall
fireplace, the carved wooden seats, and the frescoing and gilding of the
walls, as to remember that she was dressed for a tenement in Avenue C,
and not for a west-side apartment house. The gray shawl she had left
behind; but she felt sure that the important-looking hall boys and,
above all, the plump and prosperous-seeming clerk at the desk, with an
habitually neutral expression upon his countenance, must wonder why a
woman had intruded into the sacred front entrance in so plain a hat and
gown at seven o'clock in the morning. She felt in her pocket for her
card-case, but of course that had been left in the pocket of a better
dress, and she must write upon one of those little cards that the house
furnishes; and all this while the clerk would be wondering who she was.
But there was a native self-reliance about Phillida that shielded her
from contempt. She asked for the card, took up a pen, and wrote:

"Miss Callender wishes to see Mr. Millard in great haste, on a matter of
the utmost importance."

She was about to put this into an env