o, I'm just going home."

"Then we'll have some tea first; there's a shop just along the road."

Faith followed obediently. He looked younger to-day, she thought, and
better-looking! She wished with all her heart that Peg or some of the
other girls could see her. They faced one another across a marble-topped
table, and the man ordered tea and cakes.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. Faith shook her head; she was too pleased to
be hungry.

She kept telling herself that, of course, it must be a dream. Under
cover of the table she gave herself a hard pinch to make sure that she
was really awake....

"You're not eating anything," the man said, and she awoke with a start
to realities.

"How old are you?" he asked, and she told him with fluttering haste,
"I'm nineteen."

"Nineteen!" He raised his brows. "I should have said sixteen," he
smiled. "How old do you think I am?"

She considered for a moment. "Forty?" she hazarded.

He laughed. "Not quite so bad; I'm six-and-thirty."

"Oh!" She looked at him gravely. "It's not very old," she said kindly.

"Nearly twenty years older than you," he reminded her.

"Yes."

He went on: "I've lived abroad most of my life, and that ages a man, you
know. I've slept under the sky for months at a time and never spoken to
a living soul for weeks. I've starved and begged." He laughed. "Once I
even robbed a man. But I paid him back when I got the money. Are you
shocked?" he asked.

"Oh, no!" She thought him the most wonderful person she had ever met.

"Tell me something about yourself," said the Beggar Man abruptly.

She told him the little she knew--how that her father had been "a
gentleman"; how his people had cast him off for marrying her mother; how
that he had died three years ago, leaving them without a penny.

"And I work at Heeler's," she added.

"Yes, you told me that yesterday. And they treat you--well?"

"Peg says it might be worse. Peg is my best friend and I love her," said
Faith fervently.

"Lucky Peg!" said the Beggar Man.

Faith shook her head. "She doesn't think she's lucky," she answered
seriously. "She's always saying how unfair things are. She hates rich
people and she hates Mr. Scammel, too! She says that she would like to
murder him."

"And who is Scammel?" asked the Beggar Man.

"Heeler's belongs to him," she told him. "He's ever so rich, and he's
got a house in Park-lane and a place on the river, and a yacht and a
car----"

"Anything else?" the ma