in Miss Agnes Carroll, and her
character was to him a thing of great and poignant importance. He
often wished to ask old Sanders about her, but he was afraid to do so,
partly because he thought he ought to take it for granted that she was
a good girl, and partly because he was afraid Sanders would tell him
she was not. But one night as she passed them, as proud and haughty
looking as ever, old Sanders grunted scornfully, and M'Gee felt that
he was growing very red.

"Now, there is a girl," said the old man, "who ought to be out of
this business. She's too good for it, and she'll never get on in it.
Not that she couldn't keep straight and get on, but because she is too
little interested in it, and shows no heart in the little she has to
do. She can sing a little bit, but she can't do the steps."

"Then why does she stay in it?" said Andy M'Gee.

"Well, they tell me she's got a brother to support. He's too young or
too lazy to work, or a cripple or something. She tried giving singing
lessons, but she couldn't get any pupils, and now she supports herself
and her brother with this."

Andy M'Gee felt a great load lifted off his mind. He became more and
more interested in Miss Agnes Carroll, and he began to think up little
speeches to make to her, which were intended to show how great his
respect for her was, and what an agreeable young person he might be if
you only grew to know him. But she never grew to know him. She always
answered him very quietly and very kindly, but never with any show of
friendliness or with any approach to it, and he felt that he would
never know her any better than he did on the first night she spoke to
him. But three or four times he found her watching him, and he took
heart at this and from something he believed he saw in her manner and
in the very reticence she showed. He counted up how much of his pay he
had saved, and concluded that with it and with what he received
monthly he could very well afford to marry. When he decided on this
he became more devoted to her, and even the girls stopped laughing
about it now. They saw it was growing very serious indeed.

One afternoon there was a great fire, and he and three others fell
from the roof and were burned a bit, and the boy ambulance surgeon
lost his head and said they were seriously injured, which fact got
into the afternoon papers, and when Andy turned up as usual at the
Opera House there was great surprise and much rejoicing. And the next