of men and boys
gathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remained
unsatisfied.

Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He could
not enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear by
knocking. He must find the landlady.

He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit it
during the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passed
down the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No one
answered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, being
anxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.

The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.

"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing with
the other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending,
or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.

"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering he
approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out
of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.

"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up in
front of her.

The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to its
extreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eye
caught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietly
and with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,--he could hardly
tell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, it
was touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by its
deformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:

"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady you
want, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."

He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom was
surprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expression
as he repeated:

"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, in
curious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but which
seemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them to
and looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook her
head and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:

"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'm
sorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. I
have to mend this dress and I don't know how.