id Miss Mason sharply, "I shan't come crying to you
for sympathy; however ... Well, she's poor! she's one of those
horribly poor, frightfully proud people whom it's impossible to help.
I've tried all ways! I asked her to go shares with my sitting-room,
and she said she couldn't afford it; she'll hardly let me give her a
cup of tea or coffee for fear I should think she is sponging on me.
She seems most frightfully alone in the world. She says she engaged to
a man, but he's abroad, and I'm sure he's not nice, anyway. He's only
written to her once since I've known her, at all events, and this
morning when there wasn't a letter, I know she went back to her room
and cried. I knocked at the door, but she wouldn't let me in."

She paused, and looked at Micky for sympathy.

He half smiled; he knew how enthusiastic June always was about
everything.

"Well, and what do you want me to do for this damsel in distress?" he
asked gently.

"I want you to get her a berth somewhere," he was told promptly. "No,
it's no use saying you can't! My dear man, you must know scores of
people who'd take her in. She thought she was fixed up all right, but
now it appears that the people she was with before haven't got a
vacancy for her, and so that's knocked on the head. She told me that
she's have to just take the first thing that came along. I don't
believe she's hardly got a shilling to her name. I offered to take her
into partnership with me. I said we'd go travelling together for my
beauty cream, but she wouldn't hear of it.... She's so proud!"--and
here a sound of tears crept into June Mason's voice. "I ask you,
Micky, what can be done with any one like that?"

Micky shrugged his shoulders.

"If she'll take anything that comes along, she ought to get a job
pretty soon," he said laconically. "I'll speak to a man I know--can
she write a decent hand and all that sort of thing?"

"Of course she can! But I want a good berth, mind you! I've never been
so fond of anybody as I am of her. She's awfully worried about this
horrid man she's engaged to. She doesn't say much about him, but this
morning she said that there didn't seem to be anything to live for,
and her eyes looked so sad...."

Micky smiled at her serious face.

"You'd make an eloquent appeal in a court of law," he said. He took a
pencil from his pocket and an envelope. "Give me her name and address,
and I'll see what I can do. I don't promise anything, mind you, but
I'll do what