d have cried--I'd have burst into a perfect storm of
tears--for him--or you--or anybody who so much as pointed a finger at
me, I was so scared."

"Scared? You! I don't believe it."

"I don't believe it myself--now," confessed Esme, candidly. "But it felt
most extremely like it at the time."

"You know I don't at all approve of--"

"Of me. I know you don't, Jinny. Neither does he."

"What did you do to him?"

"Me? I cooed at him like a dove of peace.

"But he was very stiff and proud
He said, 'You needn't talk so loud,'"

chanted Miss Esme mellifluously.

"He didn't!"

"Well, if he didn't, he meant it. He wanted to know what the big, big
D-e-v, dev, I was doing there, anyway."

"Norrie Elliot! Tell me the truth."

"Very well," said Miss Elliot, aggrieved. "_You_ report the
conversation, then, since you won't accept my version."

"If you would give me a start--"

"Just what he wouldn't do for me," interrupted Esme. "I went in there
to explain something and he pointed the finger of scorn at me and
accused me of frequenting low and disreputable localities."

"Norrie!"

"Well," replied the girl brazenly, "he said he'd seen me about the
Rookeries district; and if that isn't a low--"

"Had he?"

"Nothing more probable, though I didn't happen to see him there."

"What were you doing there?"

"Precisely what he wanted to know. He said it rather as if he owned the
place. So I explained in words of one syllable that I went there to pick
edelweiss from the fire escapes. Jinny, dear, you don't know how hard it
is to crowd 'edelweiss' into one syllable until you've tried. It
splutters."

"So do you," said the indignant Mrs. Willard. "You do worse; you gibber.
If you weren't just the prettiest thing that Heaven ever made, some one
would have slain you long ago for your sins."

"Pretty, yourself," retorted Esme. "My real charm lies in my rigid
adherence to the spirit of truth. Your young friend Mr. Surtaine scorned
my floral jest. He indicated that I ought not to be about the tenements.
He said there was a great deal of sickness there. That was why I was
there, I explained politely. Then he said that the sickness might be
contagious, and he muttered something about an epidemic and then looked
as if he wished he hadn't."

"I've heard some talk of sickness in the Rookeries. Ought you to be
going there?" asked the other anxiously.

"Mr. Surtaine thinks not. Quite severely. And in elderly tones.
N