y remembered history; but their
name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found
in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was smiling over this quaint
olfactory coincidence, and wondering whether any human being alive at
that moment had ever read the Sieur Houssaie's book, when a tug at my
arm, such as a neglected terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to
the workaday world. I turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown,
piteous, imploring dog's eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to the
disregarded female in black.

"Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do."

I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious glance at
the female in black had taken her to be. She was quite young, remarkably
good looking. Even at the first instant I was struck by her eyes and the
mass of bronze hair and the twitching of a childish mouth. But she
had an untidy, touzled, raffish appearance, due to I knew not what
investiture of disrepute. Her hands--for she wore no gloves--wanted
washing.

"What a young girl like yourself must not do," said I, "is to enter into
conversation with men in public places."

"Then I shall have to die," she said, forlornly, edging away from my
side.

She had the oddest little foreign accent. I looked at her again
more critically, and discovered what it was that made her look so
disreputable. She was wearing an old black dress many sizes too big for
her. Great pleats of it were secured by pins in unexpected places, so
that quaint chaos was made of the scheme of decoration--black velvet
and bugles--on the bodice. Instinctively I felt that a middle-aged,
fat, second-hand-clothes-dealing Jewess had built it many years ago
for synagogue wear. On the girlish figure it looked preposterous.
Preposterous too was her head-gear, an amorphous bonnet trimmed in
black, with a cheap black feather drooping brokenly.

Her eyes gave me a reproachful glance and turned away again. Then she
shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. My mother had a housemaid once
who always sniffed like that before beginning to cry. My position was
untenable. I could not remain stonily on the seat while this grotesquely
attired damsel wept; and for the life of me I could not get up and leave
her. She looked at me again. Those swimming, pleading eyes were scarcely
human. I capitulated.

"Don't cry. Tell me what I can do for you," I said.

She moved a few inches nearer.

"I want to find Harry,