rie moved just a fraction of an
inch closer to the boy. She knew, somehow, that his small, curiously
abject apology was in a way related to the "kid sister"; she knew, almost
instinctively, that this Lily who could make a smile come to the dark
little face, who could make a tenderness dwell in those hard young eyes,
was the only avenue by which she could reach this strange child. She
spoke to him suddenly, impulsively.

"I'd like to see your Lily; I'd like to see her, awfully," she told
him. "Will you bring her some time to call on me? I live at the
Settlement House."

A subtle change had come over the child's face. He slid, hurriedly, from
the bench.

"Oh," he said, "yer one o' them! You sing hymns 'n' pray 'n' tell folks
t' take baths. I know. Well, I can't bring Lily t' see you--not ever!"

Rose-Marie had also risen to her feet.

"Then," she said eagerly, "let me come and see Lily. Where do you live?"

The boy's eyes had fallen. It was plain that he did not want to
answer--that he was experiencing the almost inarticulate embarrassment of
childhood.

"We live," he told her at last, "in that house over there." His pointing
finger indicated the largest and grimiest of the tenements that loomed,
dark and high, above the squalor of a side street. "But you wouldn't
wanter come--there!"

Rose-Marie caught her breath sharply. She was remembering how the
Superintendent had forbidden her to do visiting, how the Young Doctor
had laughed at her desire to be of service. She knew what they would say
if she told them that she was going into a tenement to see a strange
child named Lily. Perhaps that was why her voice had an excited ring as
she answered.

"Yes, I would come there!" she told the boy. "Tell me what floor you live
on, and what your name is, and when it would be best for me to come?"

"My name's Bennie Volsky," the boy said slowly. "We're up five flights,
in th' back. D'yer really mean that you'll come--an' see Lily?"

Rose-Marie nodded soberly. How could the child know that her heart was
all athrob with the call of a great adventure?

"Yes, I mean it," she told him. "When shall I come?"

The boy's grubby hand shot out and rested upon her sleeve.

"Come to-morrow afternoon," he told her. "Say, yer all right!" He turned,
swiftly, and ran through the crowd, and in a moment had disappeared like
a small drab-coloured city chameleon.

Rose-Marie, standing by the bench, watched the place where he had
disappe