ack to his memory the vision of hill and stream. In her
little brown shoes and gloves and the frock which was also of a shade
of brown though darker, she was strangely suggestive to him of a fawn.
The gentle look, the swift, soft movements that have taken place before
they are seen; the haunting suggestion of fear never quite conquered,
as if the little nervous limbs were always ready for sudden flight. He
called her that one day. Neither of them had ever thought to ask one
another's names; it did not seem to matter.

"My little brown fawn," he had whispered, "I am always expecting you to
suddenly dig your little heels into the ground and spring away"; and
she had laughed and drawn a little closer to him. And even that was
just the movement of a fawn. He had known them, creeping near to them
upon the hill-sides when he was a child.

There was much in common between them, so they found. Though he could
claim a few distant relatives scattered about the North, they were
both, for all practical purposes, alone in the world. To her, also,
home meant a bed-sitting room--"over there," as she indicated with a
wave of the little fawn glove embracing the north-west district
generally; and he did not press her for any more precise address.

It was easy enough for him to picture it: the mean, close-smelling
street somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lisson Grove, or farther on
towards the Harrow Road. Always he preferred to say good-bye to her at
some point in the Outer Circle, with its peaceful vista of fine trees
and stately houses, watching her little fawn-like figure fading away
into the twilight.

No friend or relative had she ever known, except the pale,
girlish-looking mother who had died soon after they had come to London.
The elderly landlady had let her stay on, helping in the work of the
house; and when even this last refuge had failed her, well-meaning folk
had interested themselves and secured her employment. It was light and
fairly well paid, but there were objections to it, so he gathered, more
from her halting silences than from what she said. She had tried for a
time to find something else, but it was so difficult without help or
resources. There was nothing really to complain about it, except--
And then she paused with a sudden clasp of the gloved hands, and,
seeing the troubled look in her eyes, he had changed the conversation.

It did not matter; he would take her away from it. It was very sweet