dependent."

"Well," replied Hilary, with a shrug, "you'd better take his offer."

She kept turning her face back as she went down the path, as though to
show her gratitude. And presently, looking up from his manuscript, he
saw her face still at the railings, peering through a lilac bush.
Suddenly she skipped, like a child let out of school. Hilary got up,
perturbed. The sight of that skipping was like the rays of a lantern
turned on the dark street of another human being's life. It revealed, as
in a flash, the loneliness of this child, without money and without
friends, in the midst of this great town.

The months of January, February, March passed, and the little model came
daily to copy the "Book of Universal Brotherhood."

Mr. Stone's room, for which he insisted on paying rent, was never entered
by a servant. It was on the ground-floor, and anyone passing the door
between the hours of four and six could hear him dictating slowly,
pausing now and then to spell a word. In these two hours it appeared to
be his custom to read out, for fair copying, the labours of the other
seven.

At five o'clock there was invariably a sound of plates and cups, and out
of it the little model's voice would rise, matter-of-fact, soft,
monotoned, making little statements; and in turn Mr. Stone's, also making
statements which clearly lacked cohesion with those of his young friend.
On one occasion, the door being open, Hilary heard distinctly the
following conversation:

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says he was a butler. He's got an ugly
nose." (A pause.)

Mr. STONE: "In those days men were absorbed in thinking of their
individualities. Their occupations seemed to them important---"

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says his savings were all swallowed up by
illness."

Mr. STONE: "---it was not so."

The LITTLE MODEL: "Mr. Creed says he was always brought up to go to
church."

Mr. STONE (suddenly): "There has been no church worth going to since A.
D. 700."

The LITTLE MODEL: "But he doesn't go."

And with a flying glance through the just open door Hilary saw her
holding bread-and-butter with inky fingers, her lips a little parted,
expecting the next bite, and her eyes fixed curiously on Mr. Stone, whose
transparent hand held a teacup, and whose eyes were immovably fixed on
distance.

It was one day in April that Mr. Stone, heralded by the scent of Harris
tweed and baked potatoes which habitually encircled him, appeared