What'll Cis say when she
sees them!" he faltered. (How live and sturdy they had seemed such a
little while ago!)

"Cis," he told her sadly when she came in (just a moment before Big Tom
returned from work), "Blanchfleur, and Cora, and Elaine, and Gertie, and
all--they fell t' pieces!"

She was not cast down by the news or the sight of the bowl. She had, she
said, expected it, the weather being warm and the flat hot. After that,
so far as he could see, she did not give the flowers another thought.
When he told her that Father Pat had discovered the longshoreman waiting
for Mr. Perkins in the area, she was not surprised or concerned. In the
usual evening manner, she brushed and freshened and pressed, smiling as
she worked. She seemed entirely to have forgotten all the unhappy hours
of the day before. True, she started if Barber spoke to her, and her
quaint face flushed. But that was all.

"Clear grown-up!" Johnnie told himself as he put the petals out of
sight on a cupboard shelf, laying the stems beside them.

"Everything's going to be all right," she assured him when she told him
good night, "now that we've got Father Mungovan." (So that was why she
was so happy! Or was it because she was engaged? Johnnie wondered.)

In the days that followed Father Pat became a familiar figure in and
about the area building. (And this was fortunate for Johnnie, since Mr.
Perkins's visits had suddenly come to an end.) Almost at any hour the
priest might be seen slowly crossing the brick pavement, or more slowly
climbing the stairs on his way to the Barber flat. When he was not at
Johnnie's, reading aloud out of the book on astronomy while Johnnie
threaded beads, he might be found overhead in Mrs. Kukor's bright
kitchen, resting in a rocker, a cup of tea nursed in both hands, and
holding long, confidential and (to Johnnie) mysterious conversations,
which the latter wished so much he might share, though he always
discouraged the wish, understanding that it was not at all polite to
want to be where he was not invited.

He and the priest, of course, had their own lengthy and delightful
talks. Sometimes it would be Johnnie who would have the most to say.
Perhaps he would tell Father Pat about one of his thinks: a vision, say,
of high roof-bridges, built far above the crowded, noisy
streets--arched, steel bridges, swung from the summit of one tall
building to another like the threads of a spider's web. Each bridge was
to be lighted by