t likely, of
course, I understand that--but if it _should_ ever happen so--_promise_
me that you'll send for me."

But the girl did not make that promise then, her reply being: "You
_have_ helped me--you _must_ know that.... You're the one person in the
world who has."

* * * * *

Cally walked home alone, in the dying effects of a lovely afternoon.

She had left the Cooney parlor in the vein of one emerging from strange
adventures in undiscovered countries. This queer feeling would hardly
last over the solid threshold of Home, whose atmosphere was almost
notoriously uncongenial to eccentricities of that sort. But it did
linger now, as Cally trod somewhat dreamily over streets that she had
long known by heart. Four blocks there were; and the half-lights
flickering between sky and sidewalk were of the color of the girl's
own mood.

In this moment she was not troubled with thought, with the drawing of
moral lessons concerning duty or otherwise. Now Mr. V.V.'s unexpected
last speeches to her seemed wholly to possess her mind. She was aware
that they had left her curiously humbled.... Strange it seemed, that
this man could be so unconscious of the influence he had upon her, had
clearly had even last year. Stranger yet that he, whom only the other
day she had thought of as so narrow, so religiously hard, should prove
himself absurdly over-generous in his estimate of her.... Or no, not
that exactly. But, at least, it would have been absurd, if it had not
been so sweet....

The revolting corner of her mind seemed now to have laid down arms.
Perhaps the girl's vague thought was that the feelings roused in her in
the bunching-room had, after all, been unreasonable, even hysterical, as
Hugo had plainly enough stated, as Hen herself had partly argued.
Perhaps it was merely that all that trouble would keep, to be quietly
pondered over at a later time. But rather, it seemed as if a mist had
settled down over the regions of practical thought, hiding problems from
view. The Works had somehow been swallowed up in that apologia she had
made, Cally Heth's strange apology to Mr. V.V. for herself and her life.

Cally walked slowly along the familiar street, her thoughts a thousand
miles in the blue. If the words of the good young man had humbled her,
they had also mysteriously stirred and uplifted. She thought of his too
trusting tribute, she thought of what they had said about women, their
strength a