, if desired. An evening's
wear out of them, and then back on the card and into stock again, the
same as new, and nobody the wiser. Lazarus would do the same.

"It's very nice of you, Corinne," said the young man, picking up the
suitcase again. "Something in pearl or plain gold, perhaps. Come
straight back now. I don't like at all for you to be running the streets
at night--"

"Maybe I won't come back at all," said Kern, improvising a barn dance
about the long office. "Maybe I'll run off with a count and go to Europe
on a steamer like, and have mand'lins played under my winder by
moonlight, and sit at a gool' writin'-desk all day and make up po'try."

"That would be rather hard on the count, wouldn't it?" said Mr. V.V.,
absently; and added at once: "What makes you do that?"

"Stitch in me side," said she, impishly. "Machineetis, _I_ call it. Like
'pendicitis, y' know? It's gone now. I don't get tired when I dance."

Kern had a quantity of dark brown hair, covered now by a picture hat
supporting a base red imitation of a willow plume; she put on the hat
every night nowadays, whether she was going out or not. By two years'
steady practice she was esteemed one of the best operatives in the Heth
Cheroot Works; but her new passion in life was to learn from Mr. V.V.
what it was to be a lady. Dearly as Kern loved beads, pins, buckles, and
all that shone and glittered, her particular desire for Christmas had
been a Netiquette and Complete Letter Writer, and this Mr. V.V. had duly
obtained for her, though it had run to a dollar and a quarter. The
little girl might have been any age or no age; she was unformed for her
years, somewhat elfin of countenance, and thin in the cheek. On one of
these cheeks, Dr. Vivian now laid the back of his hand, and told Kern to
stick out her tongue. She did it as she did everything (except
cheroot-making), like a game, sticking it out much farther than was
necessary and repeatedly winking her left eye.

Vivian set down the suitcase again.

"You go to bed," said he. "I'll attend to the studs."

Kern stuck back her tongue and unwinked her eye, with something like
consternation.

"I feel _very_ well, Mr. V.V.--honest! I'll get 'em and come straight
back, sir,--truly, truly!"

The young man reached for his overcoat. "I don't want you to go out
to-night. It's just the same as if you did it for me, because you want
to do it. That's what counts. Now go on to bed. You aren't well at
all, I fear