ings in stores, trumpery, cheap things. She took magazines
and penny papers from news stands. But oh, she descended to the
dreadful depths of--oh, I can hardly tell it--she was detected in
trying to pick a man's pocket. It is here that I wish to employ you as
an agent of restitution, or rather retribution, I should say. Will you
please take this ring off my left hand and take it to the man she
tried to rob? I cannot use the fingers of my right hand owing to
temporary incapacitation," and she held out to Mr. Middleton her left
hand, upon the third finger of which gleamed a splendid ring of
diamonds and emeralds. Mr. Middleton possessed himself of this second
hand, but paused, and regarding the sweet face turned up to his so
beseechingly, so piteously, said:

"But that would be compounding a felony. And how do you know the man
will not have her arrested anyway?"

"The man is a gentleman and having heard her story, will not think of
such a thing. You are to ask him to accept the ring not as a price for
immunity from arrest, but as a punishment, a retribution to Amy. The
loss of the ring, which she has commissioned me to get to this
gentleman in some manner, will be a lesson she is only too anxious to
give herself, a forcible reminder, as it were. Let me beg of you to
undertake this commission."

All the while, Mr. Middleton was retaining hold of both the hands of
the sorrowful young woman. Had they been other than the soft and
shapely hands they were, had they been hard and gnarled and large,
long before would he, melted by compassion at the young woman's tale,
have released her. But her very charms had been her undoing and
because of her perfect hands, this tale has grown long. That he might
have excuse in the eyes of the other passengers for holding the young
woman's hand, Mr. Middleton removed the ring as he had been bidden,
planning to return it shortly. As he removed the ring, he released the
hand in his pocket and his plan was frustrated by the young woman
starting up with the exclamation that she had passed her corner, and
springing from the car. She was so far in advance of him, when he
succeeded in getting off the car and was walking so rapidly, that he
could not overtake her except by running, and he was averse to
attracting the attention that this would occasion. So he determined to
shadow her and ascertaining her residence, find some means of
restoring the ring without the knowledge of her friends, as he had