he court train,'" Miss Manvers pursued in abstraction, "'is lined
with lace and dotted with bouquets of orange-blossoms--'"

She checked herself suddenly, looked up shyly, and essayed a pale,
apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry; I didn't realise--"

But now the waitress had caught a glimpse of the illustration and was
bending over the patron's shoulder for a better look.

"Gee!" she commented sincerely. "Ain't that a dream?"

"Yes," Miss Manvers admitted wistfully, "it's a dream, right enough!"

"That's so, too." Deftly, with a large, moist, red hand, the waitress
arranged knife, fork, spoon, and paper serviette on the unclothed
brown board before Miss Manvers. "That's the worst of them fashion
mag'zines," she complained; "they get your goat. Sometimes after
readin' some of that dope I can't hardly remember orders right, just
for wishin' somebody'd come along and hang some of them joyful rags
onto me!"

Then, catching the eye of the manager, she straightway resumed her
professional habit of slightly wilted hauteur--compounded in equal
parts of discontent, tired feet, heat-fag and that profound disdain
for food-consuming animals which inevitably informs the mind of every
quick-lunch waitress.

"What you gonna have?" she demanded dispassionately.

"Ham-and, please."

"Plate of ham-and. Cawfy?"

"Yes, iced coffee and"--Miss Manvers hesitated briefly--"and a
napoleon."

Reciting the amended order, the waitress withdrew.

For the next few moments the customer neglected the fashion magazine
which she had found--apparently a souvenir of some other
absent-minded patron--on the seat of the chair next that one of her
own casual choice.

She stared blankly at the smudged and spotted bill of fare propped up,
in its wooden frame, against an armour-plate-china sugar-bowl. She was
deeply intrigued by the mystery of human frailty as exemplified by her
reckless extravagance in ordering that superfluous bit of pastry. Miss
Manvers's purse contained a single coin of silver, the quarter of a
dollar; being precisely the sum of her entire fortune. Her ham and
beans would cost fifteen cents, the coffee and the napoleon five cents
each. In other words, she would be penniless when she had paid her
score--and Heaven only knew for how long afterward.

Her lips moved without sound in her worn and pallid face. "What's the
difference?" she bully-ragged her conscience. "I might as well be
broke as the way I am!"

The argument was pain