ittle chin, a tiny white scar showed like
a dimple, giving to her lower lip when she laughed an expression of
charming archness. I remember these things now--at the moment there was
no room for them in my whirling thoughts.

"Oh!" cried the little girl in a burst of happiness, "there's my boy!"

The next minute she had leaped out of the carriage and was bounding
across the pavement. Her arms were filled with azalea, and loosened
petals fluttered like a swarm of pink and white moths around her.

"What are you doing, boy?" she asked. "Where is your basket?"

"It's at the market. I'm selling papers."

"Come, Sally," commanded Miss Mitty, stepping out of the surrey with the
rest of the flowers. "You must not stop in the street to talk to people
you don't know."

"But I do know him, Aunt Mitty, he brings our marketing."

"Well, come in anyway. You are breaking the flowers."

The strong, heady perfume filled my nostrils, though when I remember it
now it changes to the scent of wallflowers, which clings always about my
memory of the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains draped
back from the small square window-panes as if a face looked out on the
crooked pavement.

"Please, Aunt Mitty, let me buy a paper," begged the child.

"A paper, Sally! What on earth would you do with a paper?"

"Couldn't I roll up my hair in it, Auntie?"

"You don't roll up your hair in newspapers. Here, come in. I can't wait
any longer."

Lingering an instant, Sally leaned toward me over the pink cloud of
azalea. "I'd just love to play with you and Samuel," she said with the
sparkling animation I remembered from our first meeting, "but dear Aunt
Mitty has so much pride, you know."

She bent still lower, gave Samuel an impassioned hug with her free arm,
and then turning quickly away ran up the short flight of steps and
disappeared into the house. The next instant the door closed sharply
after her, and only the small rosy petals fluttering in the wind were
left to prove to me that I was really awake and it was not a dream.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS

There was no lingering at kitchen doorways with scolding white-turbaned
cooks next morning, for as soon as I had delivered the marketing, I
returned the basket to John Chitling, and set out down Twenty-fifth
Street in the direction of the river. As I went on, a dry, pungent odour
seemed to escape from the pavement beneath and invade the air. The earth
wa