what it might be like--her one hundred and ninety-six
dollars and twenty-eight cents seemed to be shrinking in the wash.

"Nonsense!" said she, on the elevated again, tearing downtown. "Don't
be a silly. Any one would think you were the leading lady in a
melodrama, turned out of the house without your hat, in a snowstorm
that followed you round the stage like a wasp! You'll be all right.
Miss Ellis told you they _loved_ English girls in New York. Just you
wait till to-morrow, my dear!"

The rest of the day she spent in the frying pan, "pulling herself
together," and "seeing where she stood," a process consisting mostly
of counting her greenbacks and comparing them with their equivalent in
English money. After all, there was not too much time for this mental
adjustment of things, because, being late in October, darkness fell
early, and Miss Hampshire's boarders dined at six-thirty. Promptness
was obligatory if you were a female. A little more latitude--a raising
of the eyebrows instead of a frown--was granted if you were fortunate
enough to be of the opposite sex. Miss Hampshire's sad smile seemed to
concede that men had temptations.

There were bank clerks and schoolteachers and translators though no
more poetesses; and everybody was kind to the new boarder, the
Englishwoman, especially in telling her all about New York.

"What do you think of Broadway?" asked her neighbour a handsome young
German Jew, who was more insistently American than any of those native
born.

Win was shamefacedly not sure whether she had seen it.

"Not sure whether you have seen _Broadway_!" exclaimed Mr. Loewenfeld.
"Wait till you've been on the Great White Way after dark. _Then_ I
guess you won't make any mistake."

"Is it so wonderful?" she asked.

"I should smile! There's nothing like it on earth. Would you like to
walk out and see it to-night? Miss Secker and I'll take you, if you
would, won't we, Miss Secker?"

"Only too pleased," rather shrilly replied a fair-haired girl on his
other side--a pretty girl in eyeglasses who, Miss Hampshire had
announced, was "translating secretary" for a firm of toy importers.
Somehow the tone suggested to Win an incipient engagement of marriage
and jealousy of new importations.

But Mr. Loewenfeld had spoken no more than the truth. Broadway at
night, seen as a pedestrian at the side of Miss Secker, was
astonishing, was marvellous, was unique. The whole sky was alight and
pulsing with its magnif