on her face plainly enough for anybody to see.
Notwithstanding this, we all thought her an interesting woman. It might
have been the sweetness of her voice; or perhaps it was something in her
expression that took our fancy. There! I can't explain it; I can only
say there were young women and pretty women at Tadmor who failed to win
us as Miss Mellicent did. Contradictory enough, isn't it?"

Mr. Hethcote said he understood the contradiction. Rufus put an
appropriate question: "Do you possess a photograph of this lady, sir?"

"No," said Amelius; "I wish I did. Well, we received her, on her
arrival, in the Common Room--called so because we all assemble there
every evening, when the work of the day is done. Sometimes we have
the reading of a poem or a novel; sometimes debates on the social and
political questions of the time in England and America; sometimes music,
or dancing, or cards, or billiards, to amuse us. When a new member
arrives, we have the ceremonies of introduction. I was close by the
Elder Brother (that's the name we give to the chief of the Community)
when two of the women led Miss Mellicent in. He's a hearty old fellow,
who lived the first part of his life on his own clearing in one of the
Western forests. To this day, he can't talk long, without showing, in
one way or another, that his old familiarity with the trees still keeps
its place in his memory. He looked hard at Miss Mellicent, under his
shaggy old white eyebrows; and I heard him whisper to himself, 'Ah, dear
me! Another of The Fallen Leaves!' I knew what he meant. The people who
have drawn blanks in the lottery of life--the people who have toiled
hard after happiness, and have gathered nothing but disappointment and
sorrow; the friendless and the lonely, the wounded and the lost--these
are the people whom our good Elder Brother calls The Fallen Leaves.
I like the saying myself; it's a tender way of speaking of our poor
fellow-creatures who are down in the world."

He paused for a moment, looking out thoughtfully over the vast void of
sea and sky. A passing shadow of sadness clouded his bright young face.
The two elder men looked at him in silence, feeling (in widely different
ways) the same compassionate interest. What was the life that lay before
him? And--God help him!--what would he do with it?

"Where did I leave off?" he asked, rousing himself suddenly.

"You left Miss Mellicent, sir, in the Common Room--the venerable citizen
with the whi