e suit in a window that she knew--by saving twenty cents a week
instead of ten, in--let's see--Oh, it would run into years! But there
was a second-hand store in Seventh Avenue where--

Somebody knocked at the door. Dulcie opened it. The landlady stood there
with a spurious smile, sniffing for cooking by stolen gas.

"A gentleman's downstairs to see you," she said. "Name is Mr. Wiggins."

By such epithet was Piggy known to unfortunate ones who had to take him
seriously.

Dulcie turned to the dresser to get her handkerchief; and then she
stopped still, and bit her underlip hard. While looking in her mirror
she had seen fairyland and herself, a princess, just awakening from a
long slumber. She had forgotten one that was watching her with sad,
beautiful, stern eyes--the only one there was to approve or condemn
what she did. Straight and slender and tall, with a look of sorrowful
reproach on his handsome, melancholy face, General Kitchener fixed his
wonderful eyes on her out of his gilt photograph frame on the dresser.

Dulcie turned like an automatic doll to the landlady.

"Tell him I can't go," she said dully. "Tell him I'm sick, or something.
Tell him I'm not going out."

After the door was closed and locked, Dulcie fell upon her bed, crushing
her black tip, and cried for ten minutes. General Kitchener was her only
friend. He was Dulcie's ideal of a gallant knight. He looked as if he
might have a secret sorrow, and his wonderful moustache was a dream, and
she was a little afraid of that stern yet tender look in his eyes. She
used to have little fancies that he would call at the house sometime,
and ask for her, with his sword clanking against his high boots. Once,
when a boy was rattling a piece of chain against a lamp-post she had
opened the window and looked out. But there was no use. She knew that
General Kitchener was away over in Japan, leading his army against the
savage Turks; and he would never step out of his gilt frame for her. Yet
one look from him had vanquished Piggy that night. Yes, for that night.

When her cry was over Dulcie got up and took off her best dress, and put
on her old blue kimono. She wanted no dinner. She sang two verses of
"Sammy." Then she became intensely interested in a little red speck on
the side of her nose. And after that was attended to, she drew up a
chair to the rickety table, and told her fortune with an old deck of
cards.

"The horrid, impudent thing!" she said aloud. "And