the various shops, caught sight
of Sheila quietly having luncheon with this girl whom she had picked
up in the streets.

"Did you ever see the like of that?" he said to Mrs. Lorraine. "In
open day, with people staring in, and she has not even taken the
trouble to put the violin out of sight!"

"The poor child means no harm," said his companion.

"Well, we must get her out of this somehow," he said; and so they
entered the shop.

Sheila knew she was guilty the moment she met her husband's look,
though she had never dreamed of it before. She had, indeed, acted
quite thoughtlessly--perhaps chiefly moved by a desire to speak to
some one and to befriend some one in her own loneliness.

"Hadn't you better let this little girl go?" said Lavender to Sheila
somewhat coldly as soon as he had ordered an ice for his companion.

"When she has finished her lemonade she will go," said Sheila meekly.
"But I have to buy some things for her first."

"You have got a whole lot of people round the door," he said.

"It is very kind of the people to wait for her," answered Sheila with
the same composure. "We have been here half an hour. I suppose they
will like her music very much."

The little violinist was now taken to the counter, and her pockets
stuffed with packages of sugared fruits and other deadly delicacies:
then she was permitted to go with half a crown in her hand. Mrs.
Lorraine patted her shoulder in passing, and said she was a pretty
little thing.

They went home to luncheon. Nothing was said about the incident of
the forenoon, except that Lavender complained to Mrs. Kavanagh, in
a humorous way, that his wife had a most extraordinary fondness for
beggars, and that he never went home of an evening without expecting
to find her dining with the nearest scavenger and his family.
Lavender, indeed, was in an amiable frame of mind at this meal (during
the progress of which Sheila sat by the window, of course, for she had
already lunched in company with the tiny violinist), and was bent on
making himself as agreeable as possible to his two companions. Their
talk had drifted toward the wanderings of the two ladies on the
Continent; from that to the Niebelungen frescoes in Munich; from
that to the Niebelungen itself, and then, by easy transition, to the
ballads of Uhland and Heine. Lavender was in one of his most impulsive
and brilliant moods--gay and jocular, tender and sympathetic by turns,
and so obviously sincere in all th