o this business that I don't quite know `my place,'" she
said, smiling at him in mischievous fashion. "Last Tuesday I had my
first social engagement. I arrived at the hour appointed, and found
that the children were dancing, and that a conjurer was engaged as well
as myself. We waited our turn together, the conjurer and I, in a dreary
little room, with a dreary little gas fire that sent all its warmth up
the chimney. We waited nearly an hour and no one came near us, and it
was very cold. We talked and talked, and he showed me tricks to keep up
my spirits, for he saw how nervous I was."

Reggie Blake would have said, "Happy conjurer!" but Ralph Merrilies was
not given to compliments. He knitted his brows and inquired brusquely:

"What sort of a fellow was he? A decent sort?"

"At first I thought he was detestable. He was not, to put it mildly,
_quite_ a gentleman, and he was very familiar. I was stiff and haughty
for a few minutes, and then I began to reflect that, after all, we were
in the same position, trying to earn our living, and that if I snubbed
him I should be as great a snob as the woman who had cared so little for
our comfort. I was quite nice after that, and he really was a dear
little vulgar thing. He had an invalid wife at home--and he spoke so
tenderly of her--and two little conjurer boys who knew his tricks almost
as well as he did himself, and a delicate daughter, for whom I have
plans in the future. We exchanged addresses, and he volunteered to find
me engagements, and thought we might do a very good `j'int business.'"

Hope laughed at the remembrance, but Ralph frowned more fiercely than
before, and bending forward with his chin supported on his hands, stared
fixedly at her face.

"I hate to hear of your having such experiences--of your having to work
at all. I wish I had never suggested it. Do you mean to say you
_enjoy_ it yourself?"

"I enjoy it very much when I am well started, and see all the dear
little faces looking at me; but I hate it beforehand, and am, oh, so
frightened and nervous! And I love getting the money. I paid a
coal-bill yesterday with my very own earnings, and I never enjoyed
anything more in all my life!"

He pressed his lips together and was silent, and when he spoke again it
was to start an entirely new subject.

"How are you going home to-night?"

"In a four-wheeler. I shall get the man to whistle for one presently."

"Alone?"

"Of course. I am a