oment of its
interruption.

She was married and madly in love with her husband. His face she could
never see quite clearly. His business kept him away from home on long
trips. But his baby was always there--a laughing, wonderful boy whose
chubby hands persisted in pulling her hair down into her face each time
she bent over his cradle to kiss him.

Ella was chattering in German to someone on the stairs. She wondered
again for the hundredth time how this poor, slovenly, one-eyed,
ill-kempt creature, scrub-woman and janitress, could speak two languages
with such ease. Her English, except in excitement, seemed equally fluent
with her German. How did such a woman fall so low? She was industrious
and untiring in her work. She never touched liquor or drugs. She was
kind and thoughtful and watched over her tenants with a motherly care
for which no landlord could pay in dollars and cents. She was on her
knees on the stairs now, scrubbing down the steps to be crowded again
with muddy feet from the street below.

Mary lay for half an hour snuggling under the warm blankets, weaving a
romance about Ella's life. A great love for some heroic man who died and
left her in poverty could alone explain the mystery that hung about her.
She never spoke of her life or people. Mary had ventured once to ask
her. A wan smile flitted across the haggard face for a moment, and she
answered in low tones that closed the subject.

"I haven't any people, dear," she said slowly. "They are dead long ago."

The girl wondered if it were really true. In her joy this morning she
felt her heart go out to the pathetic, drooping figure on the stairs.
She wished that every living creature might share the secret joy that
filled her soul.

She drew the kitten from his nest beside her pillow and rubbed her cheek
against his little cold nose. He always waked her with a kiss on her
eyelids and then coiled himself back for a tiny cat-nap until she could
make up her mind to rise.

She sprang from the couch with sudden energy and stretched her dainty
figure with a prodigious yawn.

"Gracious, Kitty, we must hurry!" she cried, thrusting her bare feet
into a pair of embroidered slippers and throwing her blue flannel kimono
on over her night-dress.

The coffee-pot was boiling busily when she had bathed and dressed. Each
detail of her domestic schedule was given an extra care this morning.
The stove was carefully polished, each pot and pan placed in its rack
wit