t it was round and sweet, like the 'cello in the
Macdonough Theater orchestra.

He had called her his Tonic Kid. He had called her a thoroughbred,
clean-cut and spirited, all fine nerves and delicate and sensitive.
He had liked the way she carried her clothes. She carried them like a
dream, had been his way of putting it. They were part of her, just as
much as the cool of her voice and skin and the scent of her hair.

And her figure! She got upon a chair and tilted the mirror so that she
could see herself from hips to feet. She drew her skirt back and up.
The slender ankle was just as slender. The calf had lost none of its
delicately mature swell. She studied her hips, her waist, her bosom,
her neck, the poise of her head, and sighed contentedly. Billy must be
right, and he had said that she was built like a French woman, and that
in the matter of lines and form she could give Annette Kellerman cards
and spades.

He had said so many things, now that she recalled them all at one time.
Her lips! The Sunday he proposed he had said: "I like to watch your lips
talking. It's funny, but every move they make looks like a tickly kiss."
And afterward, that same day: "You looked good to me from the first
moment I spotted you." He had praised her housekeeping. He had said he
fed better, lived more comfortably, held up his end with the fellows,
and saved money. And she remembered that day when he had crushed her in
his arms and declared she was the greatest little bit of a woman that
had ever come down the pike.

She ran her eyes over all herself in the mirror again, gathered herself
together into a whole, compact and good to look upon--delicious, she
knew. Yes, she would do. Magnificent as Billy was in his man way, in her
own way she was a match for him. Yes, she had done well by Billy. She
deserved much--all he could give her, the best he could give her. But
she made no blunder of egotism. Frankly valuing herself, she as frankly
valued him. When he was himself, his real self, not harassed by trouble,
not pinched by the trap, not maddened by drink, her man-boy and lover,
he was well worth all she gave him or could give him.

Saxon gave herself a farewell look. No. She was not dead, any more than
was Billy's love dead, than was her love dead. All that was needed was
the proper soil, and their love would grow and blossom. And they were
turning their backs upon Oakland to go and seek that proper soil.

"Oh, Billy!" she called th