ave come to this horrible cold part of
the country," she added with a sudden tone of fierce resentment. "I
think that we shall both die of misery before we leave it again."

"Why did you come here then at all?" asked Diogenes.

"We wandered hither, because we heard that the people in this city were
so rich. I was born not far from here, and so was my mother, but my
father is a native of Spain. In France, in Brabant where we wandered
before, we always earned a good living by begging at the church doors,
but here the people are so hard...."

"You will have to wander back to Spain."

"Yes," she said sullenly, "as soon as I have earned a little money and
father is able to move, neither of which seems very likely just now."

"Ah!" he said cheerily, "that is, wench, where I proclaim thee wrong! I
do not know when thy father will be able to move, but I can tell thee at
this very moment where and how thou canst earn fifty guilders which
should take thee quite a long way toward Spain."

She looked up at him and once more that glance of joy and of surprise
crept into her eyes which had seemed so full of vindictive anger just
now. With the surprise and the joy there also mingled the admiration,
the sense of well-being in his presence.

Already he had filled the bare, squalid room with his breezy
personality, with his swagger and with his laughter; his ringing voice
had roused the echoes that slept in the mouldy rafters and frightened
the mice that dwelt in the wainscotting and now scampered hurriedly
away.

"I," she said with obvious incredulity, "I to earn fifty guilders! I
have not earned so much in any six months of my life."

"Perhaps not," he rejoined gaily. "But I can promise thee this; that the
fifty guilders will be thine this evening, if thou wilt render me a
simple service."

"Render thee a service," she said, and her low voice sounded quite
cooing and gentle, "I would thank God on my knees if I could render thee
a service. Didst thou not save my life...."

"By thy leave we'll not talk of that matter. 'Tis over and done with
now. The service I would ask of thee, though 'tis simple enough to
perform, I could not ask of anyone else but thee. An thou'lt do it, I
shall be more than repaid."

"Name it, sir," she said simply.

"Dost know the bank of the Oude Gracht?" he asked.

"Well," she replied.

"Dost know the Oudenvrouwenhuis situated there?"

"Yes!"

"Next to its outer walls there is a narrow passag