ed exactly as her aunt did
fifty years ago. I fear, though," she finished in a whisper, "I really
fear--that she writes."

"Is that so? Did she tell you?"

"Not in words, but she carried a parcel exactly like your manuscripts,
and she spoke--oh, so seriously--of her work. She spoke of it quite as
if it were a baby."

"By Jove!" he gasped, and after a moment, "I hope at any rate that she
will be a comfort."

With her knitting still in her hands, she rose and went to the window,
where she stood placidly staring at the sunlight upon the blackened
chimney-pots. "At least I can talk to her about her aunt," she returned.
Then her gaze grew more intense, and she almost flattened her nose
against the pane. "I declare I wonder what that woman is doing out there
on that fire-escape," she observed.

After he had got into his overcoat Trent came back to give her a parting
kiss. "Find out by luncheon time," he returned gaily.

When presently he entered the elevator he found it already occupied by a
young lady whom he recognised from his mother's description as Christina
Coles. She was very pretty, but, even more than by her prettiness, he
was struck by her peculiar steadfastness of look, as of one devoted to a
single absorbing purpose. He noticed, too, that the little tan coat she
wore was rather shabby, and that there was a small round hole in one of
the fingers of her glove. When she spoke, as she did when leaving the
key with the man in charge of the elevator, her voice sounded remarkably
fresh and pleasant. They left the house together, but while she walked
rapidly toward Broadway he contented himself with strolling leisurely
along Fourth Avenue, where he bent a vacant gaze on the objects
assembled in the windows of dealers in "antiques."

But his thoughts did not so much as brush the treasures at which he
stared, and neither the hurrying crowd--which had a restless, workaday
look at the morning hour--nor the noisily clanging cars broke into the
exquisitely reared castle of his dreams. Since the evening before his
imagination had been thrilling to the tune of some spirited music,
flowing presumably from these airy towers, and as he went on over the
wet sunlight on the sidewalk, he was still keeping step to the exalted
if unreal measures. Never in his life; not even in his wildest literary
ecstasies, had he felt so assured of the beauty, of the bountifulness,
of his coming years--so filled with a swelling thankfulness for