d her with eyes that were soft as rose-colored lamps at
dusk.

"You poor little kid!"

Addie hobbled in from the kitchen.

"I got something you'll like, Goldie. It's hot and good for you, too."

God alone knew the secret of Addie. He had fashioned her in clay and
water, even as you and me--from the same earthy compound from which is
sprung ward politicians and magic-throated divas, editors and plumbers,
poet laureates and Polish immigrants, kings and French ballet dancers,
propagandists and piece-workers, single-taxers and suffragettes.

He fashioned her in clay; and it was as if she came from under the teeth
of a Ninth Avenue street-car fender--broken, but remolded in alabaster,
and with the white light of her stanch spirit shining through--Addie,
whose side, up as high as her ribs, was a flaming furnace and whose
smile was sunshine on dew.

"You wouldn't eat no supper; so I made you some chicken broth, Goldie.
You remember when we was studying shorthand at night school how we used
to send Jimmie over to White's lunch-room for chickenette broth and a
slab of milk chocolate?"

"Do I? Gee! You were the greatest kid, Addie!"

"Eat, Goldie--gwan."

"I ain't hungry--honest!"

"Quit standing over her, Eddie; you make her nervous. Let me feed you,
Goldie."

"Gee! Ain't you swell to me!" Ready tears sprang to her eyes.

"Like you ain't my old chum, Goldie! It don't seem so long since we were
working in the same office and going to Recreation Pier dances together,
does it?"

"Addie! Addie!"

"Do you remember how you and me and Ed and Charley Snuggs used to walk
up and down Ninth Avenue summer evenings eating ice-cream cones?"

"Do I? Oh, Addie, do I?"

"I'm glad we had them ice-cream days, Goldie. They're melted, but the
flavor ain't all gone." Addie's face was large and white and
calm-featured, like a Botticelli head.

"You two girls sure was cut-ups! Remember the night Addie first
introduced us, Goldie? You came over to call for her, and us three went
to the wax-works show on Twenty-third Street. Lordy, how we cut up!"

"And I started to ask the wax policeman if we was allowed to go past the
rail!" They laughed low in their throats, as if they feared to raise an
echo in a vale of tears. "It's like old times for me to be staying all
night with you again, Addie. It's been so long! He--he used to get mad
like anything if I wanted to see any of the old crowd. He knew they
didn't know any good of him. He wa