r odd lengths, you find, when they have to be measured by the
yard, at bargain price."

Peter laughed.

"You're not meant to laugh there," she said. "It's a solemn fact."

"But _you_ always laugh."

"That's because I'm what you'd call 'up against' life. It gives me
such a funny point of view."

"That's part of what I want to talk about. Please don't keep trying to
turn the subject. Unless you think I have no business seizing the
first chance when I find you alone, to---"

"It isn't that," said Win. "I think you're very kind to take the
slightest interest. But really there _is_ nothing to tell. Just the
usual sort of thing."

"It doesn't seem exactly usual to me for a girl about nineteen years
old--"

"Twenty!"

"--to be leaving home alone and starting for a new country."

"Not alone. Mme. Nadine might be furious if she were spoken of as my
chaperon; but she is, all the same. Not that an emigrant needs a
chaperon."

"You an emigrant!"

"Well, what else am I?"

"I've been thinking of you as a dryad."

"A poor, drenched dryad, thousands of miles from her native woods. Do
you know, my veil is _soaked_?"

"I'll get you a sou'wester hat to-morrow."

"Does the barber keep them as well as Balm of Gilead?"

"No, but my sister does. She keeps one. And she doesn't want it. I
shall annex it."

"Oh! I couldn't take it!"

"If you don't, I'll throw it overboard."

"Were the chocolates hers?"

"Yes."

"And the books?"

"Some were mine. But not the ones Miss Devereux says are pretty. Look
here, Miss Child, another thing she says is that you are not with
Nadine as a permanence. What does that mean, if you don't much mind my
asking?"

"Not what you think. I'm not going to be discharged. I was engaged
only for the voyage, to take the place of a prettier girl with still
longer legs who fell through at the last moment--literally. She
stepped into one of those gas-hole places in the street. And I stepped
into her shoes--lucky shoes!--sort of seven-league ones, bringing me
across the sea, all the way to New York free, for nothing. No! I hope
not for nothing. I hope it is to make my fortune."

"I hope so, too," said Peter gravely. "Got any friends there besides
me?"

"Thanks for putting it so, Mr. Balm of Gilead. Why, I've heard that
everybody in America is ready to be a friend to lonely strangers!"

"I guess your informant was almost too much of an optimist. Couldn't
you be serious for just a minute? You