rt, was it, or under her cheek? Anyhow, it was about her
somewhere, that warm sureness, that sturdy little companion with whom
she shared a secret.

When Dr. Archie came in from the smoker, she was sitting still, looking
intently out of the window and smiling, her lips a little parted, her
hair in a blaze of sunshine. The doctor thought she was the prettiest
thing he had ever seen, and very funny, with her telescope and big
handbag. She made him feel jolly, and a little mournful, too. He knew
that the splendid things of life are few, after all, and so very easy to
miss.

PART II. THE SONG OF THE LARK

I

THEA and Dr. Archie had been gone from Moonstone four days. On the
afternoon of the nineteenth of October they were in a street-car, riding
through the depressing, unkept wastes of North Chicago, on their way to
call upon the Reverend Lars Larsen, a friend to whom Mr. Kronborg had
written. Thea was still staying at the rooms of the Young Women's
Christian Association, and was miserable and homesick there. The
housekeeper watched her in a way that made her uncomfortable. Things had
not gone very well, so far. The noise and confusion of a big city tired
and disheartened her. She had not had her trunk sent to the Christian
Association rooms because she did not want to double cartage charges,
and now she was running up a bill for storage on it. The contents of her
gray telescope were becoming untidy, and it seemed impossible to keep
one's face and hands clean in Chicago. She felt as if she were still on
the train, traveling without enough clothes to keep clean. She wanted
another nightgown, and it did not occur to her that she could buy one.
There were other clothes in her trunk that she needed very much, and she
seemed no nearer a place to stay than when she arrived in the rain, on
that first disillusioning morning.

Dr. Archie had gone at once to his friend Hartley Evans, the throat
specialist, and had asked him to tell him of a good piano teacher and
direct him to a good boarding-house. Dr. Evans said he could easily tell
him who was the best piano teacher in Chicago, but that most students'
boarding-houses were "abominable places, where girls got poor food for body
and mind." He gave Dr. Archie several addresses, however, and the doctor
went to look the places over. He left Thea in her room, for she seemed
tired and was not at all like herself. His inspection of boardinghouses
was not encouraging. Th