to
think how to reach David's people.

Resolutely she closed her door, and dressed her baby carefully; then she
arrayed herself in the soft silk gown, and the wide hat with the heavy
plume, and then--could David have seen her with her courageous eyes and
lifted head, and the faint color from excitement in her cheeks--he would
no longer have feared to take her by the hand and lead her to his mother
and say, "She is my wife, and the loveliest lady in the land."

People looked at her as she passed, and turned to look again. Down wide,
carpeted stairs she went, until she came to a broad landing with
recessed windows, where were round polished tables and people seated,
sipping tea and eating thin bread and butter and muffins. Then Cassandra
knew that she was hungry and sat herself in one of the windows apart,
before a table. Presently a young man came and bent down to her as if
listening. She looked up at him in bewilderment, but at the same
instant, seeing another young man similarly dressed bearing a tray of
muffins and tea to a lady and gentleman near by, she said:--

"I would like tea, please."

"W'ot kind, ma'm?" She did not care what kind, nor know for what to ask,
only to have something soon, so she said:--

"I will take what they have."

"Yes, ma'm. Muffins, ma'm?"

"Yes," she replied wearily, and turned to gaze out of the window. Cabs
and carriages were rushing up and down the street below them. She placed
her little son on the seat beside her and held him with sheltering arm,
while he watched the moving vehicles and looked from them to his
mother's face.

"What a perfectly lovely child!" said a pleasant voice. "Is it a boy?
How old is he?"

Cassandra looked up to see a rosy-cheeked girl, a little too stout and
florid, with a great mop of dark hair tied with a wide black ribbon. A
gray-haired lady followed, and paused beside her.

"Yes," said Cassandra, faintly. "He is almost six months old."

The girl reached over and patted his cheek. "How perfectly dear. See
him, mamma. Isn't he, though?"

"Babies are always dear," said the mother, with a smile. "Come, Laura,
we can't wait, you know," and they passed on. As Cassandra looked up in
the mother's face, something stirred vaguely in her heart. Had she seen
her before? Possibly, so many had paused to speak to her in this casual
way since she left home.

Then her tea and crisp, hot muffins were brought. The young girl's
pleasant words had warmed her hear