flash,
across the grass, before he could collect his scattered wits. He looked
after her, till, in company with the stout lady, she disappeared from
view. Then with a whimsical expression on his countenance, he took a
leather case from his breast pocket, and opening it glanced at one of
the cards within. It was as if he doubted his own identity and wished
to be reassured.

The name engraved on the card was not McAllister, but Robert Deane
Reynolds.

CHAPTER THREE

_In which the Little Red Chimney appears on the horizon, but without
a clue to its importance. In which also the Candy Man has a glimpse of
high life and is foolishly depressed by it._

Starting from the Y.M.C.A. corner, walking up the avenue a block, then
turning south, you came in a few steps to a modest grey house with a
grass plat in front of it, a freshly reddened brick walk, and flower
boxes in its windows. It was modest, not merely in the sense of being
unpretentious, but also in that of a restrained propriety. You felt it
to be a dwelling of character, wherein what should be done to-day, was
never put off till to-morrow; where there was a place for everything and
everything in it. Yet mingling with this propriety was an all-pervading
cheer that appealed strongly to the homeless passerby.

The grey house presented a gable end to the street, and stretched a
wing comfortably on either side. In one of these was a glass door, with
"Office Hours 10-1," which caused you to glance again at the sign on the
iron gate: "Dr. Prudence Vandegrift."

The other ell, which was of one story, had a double window, before
which a rose bush grew, and when the blinds were up you had sometimes a
glimpse of an opposite window, indicating that it was but one room deep.
From its roof rose a small chimney that stood out from all the other
chimneys, because, while they were grey like the house and its slate
roof, it was red.

Strolling by in a leisure hour the Candy Man had remarked it and
wondered why, and found himself continuing to wonder. Somehow that
little red chimney took hold on his imagination. It was a magical
chimney, poetic, alluring, at once a cheering and a depressing little
chimney, for it stirred him to delicious dreams, which, when they faded,
left him forlorn.

It was to Virginia he owed enlightenment. Virginia was the long-legged
child who had fished Miss Bentley's bag from beneath the Candy Wagon,
the indomitable leader of the Apartment Hous