Of Janet MacGregor and why she couldn't abide Mrs. Freddie Alden the Poetry Girl once said epics could have been written. Janet was gaunt and wiry, the relict of the late Jock MacGregor, who had cared for Uncle Peter Alden's horses for a lifetime and died leaving his savings and a bit of life insurance to Janet, together with an admonition to "keep an eye on Mr. Peter."

Janet did. She dropped into the Alden kitchen frequently of an evening to glean a melancholy satisfaction from the morbid details of Uncle Peter's lingering betwixt life and death. Whenever—which was frequent—there was an upheaval in the Alden's domestic arrangements, Janet filled in the gaps, spoke her mind freely to Mrs. Freddie, secure in the knowledge that Mrs. Freddie wouldn't talk back until a new cook arrived, and usually departed in a wholesome rage—which didn't at all deter her from accepting Mr. Freddie's sizable peace offering.

To see her "washing oop" after dinner on an evening when she was about to depart FOREVER—or anyhow until Mr. Freddie came for her again—was a tremendous sight. Especially on an evening when at the highest moment of her justifiable wrath Mr. Freddie would appear and nonchalantly suggest a "few eats for some chaps who'd dropped in" as casually as though Janet were not already on the verge of explosion. Of course she would prepare the lunch, stabbing the bread-saw viciously into the defenseless loaf and muttering dark things as she assembled something she called "old doves" on a big Sheffield platter. Janet couldn't cook at all but she could arrange things as beautifully as her ancestors did—and they had been a race of public park gardeners! There wasn't anything she couldn't do with some parsley, a can of sardines and the cheese that was left from dinner. And then she would wait grimly for the platter. Not for anything, even though she were leaving FOREVER, would Janet let the remnants remain to stain that sacred platter. Besides if she waited she always had a fine chance to growl whimpering things about what an hour it was for a decent widow woman to be a-walkin' the roads and to agree, feebly, oh very feebly, that maybe Mr. Freddie was right, that it wouldn't hurt the chauffeur to drive her back to her tiny flat.

This particular evening Janet had been speaking her mind so freely that the new dining-room girl had fled absolutely dazed by Janet's dark threat that, Mr. Peter or no Mr. Peter, she, Janet MacGregor, would never let her shadow rest again on the Alden walls. She would tell Mr. Freddie that, she would let him understand that she didn't have to take Miss' Alden's lip, that she, at least, wasn't married to her, that she had some spirit left even if she was a widow woman. And that she wasn't dependent on the Aldens nor anybody else. That she was going to quit service of any kind—day of week or month. She had a grand chance to open a window-cleaning emporium. She could get the ladders and harnesses and chamois scrubs for almost nothing from the widow of a boss cleaner who had cleaned a twenty-second story window without the aid of one of his own reliable harnesses. She didn't care so much for her flat anyhow. She was going to find a basement, she was, with a long hall to keep the ladders in and a sunny front room for her to live in and put her sign in the window. But with the Aldens she was through—unless, of course, Mr. Freddie wanted to give her a window-cleaning contract.

She had been loitering near the pantry door shamelessly eavesdropping during Dudley Hamilt's song because she hoped that meant the gentlemen would be going and that she could air her grievances while Mr. Freddie smoked and chuckled at her grumbling. So that when Mr. Freddie called for Miss Grant, Janet was on the stairs a good three seconds before that professionally calm person appeared.

Janet sat on the landing window seat and cuddled Felicia in her thin arms, crooning over her like a setting hen.

"There, there—don't ye mind her—" she lifted glum eyes to Mr. Freddie as she soothed the sobbing woman, "It's this that Miss' Freddie's tantrums brings the help to! Many a time have I masel' felt like givin' way the way this poor soul is givin' way. It's on'y ma fierce pride that saves me—don't ye cry over Miss' Freddie's way o' speakin'—"

"It wasn't Mrs. Freddie, it wasn't anybody—" Felicia lifted her streaming eyes from Janet's spare bosom. She was deeply chagrined that the group hovering on the stairway could see her tears. "It was just that—I was tired—that Uncle Peter's room was rather hot—that I liked to hear the man sing—I'm vairee well—" Her drawling "vairee" sounded anything but well, it was almost a sob in itself. "Truly vairee well—"

She was still "very well" a few moments later when she and Janet settled themselves in the luxurious car. They were the oddest pair. Janet's bonnet and shawl were as battered as Felicia's garb; exhausted as she was Felicia found herself whimsically wondering how she'd tell herself from Janet when it was time to get out. Felicia's tears had dissolved in little smothered hysterical sniffs. She was laughing at Janet's scolding because the seamstress had refused to take what Mr. Freddie had tried to give her just as they were stepping into the car.

"It's worth ony money to Mr. Freddie to have Mr. Peter snatch a bit of contentment from life—and Mr. Freddie is that prodigal with money that if you don't take it of him he'll hand it to the next one—"

"But I can't take money for playing—chess is only playing, its only for work we should take money."

Janet snorted. She talked volubly in her rich broad Scotch. Agitated as she was, Felicia's own lips were mouthing these strange new sounds, she was sure she could get the gutteral A, she wasn't sure of the burry R. She couldn't heed at all what Janet was saying, indeed she couldn't listen intelligently, because her tired ears were still filled with the glorious harmonies of Dudley Hamilt's unfinished song. When she shut her eyes she could see his tall figure swinging up the stairs—she was trying to convince herself that she was really glad that he hadn't recognized her, when the car stopped before her darkened house. Janet got out first, haughtily dismissing the chauffeur with the assurance that she could walk the four blocks over to her own house and she'd not leave a clean car in such a dirty street as Montrose Place.

Dulcie was waiting on the old balcony. Babiche trotted ahead of her when she opened the door, in ecstacy at Felicia's home coming. Dulcie set her flaring candle carefully on the newel post and eyed Janet.

"It's Janet MacGregor with me, Dulcie. She's a widow woman. This is Dulcie Dierckx, Janet, you'll like Dulcie—" She had Babiche in her arms now, and was leaning wearily against the balustrade, "Janet was good to bring me home—I was a silly fool—I cried, Dulcie—"

Janet was peering curiously into the empty house.

"Is onybody livin' here?" she demanded. "I thought I saw them all movin' out—I heard the building was comin' down to make room for lofts."

Dulcie answered that it wasn't, holding the door open as a tactful hint that she'd better go. But Janet had no intention of leaving. She had a woman's curiosity about a vacant house, and she was frankly looking things over, craning her neck to glance down the murky hallway.

"Would you think the basement might be to let to a decent body? It's no worth much, so old and all but I know a body as might conseeder it." Impractical as the "beastly step-aunt" had proclaimed her to be Dulcie grasped Janet's thin arm.

"How much would you pay?"

"Is it your hous'?"

"It's Miss Day's—" Dulcie nodded toward Felicia. "She's just been thinking she might rent part of it. Of course its altogether too large for her."

"If she's livin' here where's her furnishings?" demanded Janet cannily.

Felicia sat down on a stair. She motioned but the others remained standing, their lean figures casting grotesque shadows in the flickering light of the candle.

"This is the pattern of it," the little seamstress explained. "It's my house, Janet MacGregor, only it's dirty because while I was gone building my garden, some dirty filthy heathen came to live here. But now I'm home His Honor made them all go away. And as soon as I have earned enough money to pay the taxes and other things I shall make the house lovely again. The furniture is in a place called storage. I think I have to pay them something before I get my things, don't I, Dulcie?"

"What's the matter o' the storage bills?" demanded Janet her eyes gleaming.

Dulcie answered her, her sharp slangy syllables falling incisively after Felicia's low drawl.

"I don't know that it's any of your business but they amount to about two hundred dollars. I know what you're thinking, that with the furniture we could open a rooming house. I've been thinking that myself while Miss Day was gone. I've experience you know, my beastly step-aunt does make a good thing of it. So if you wanted to rent the basement and had some furniture of your own Miss Day might consider it."

Janet's thin arms rested akimbo. She nodded.

"If you've lodgings to let you've got to have some one to keep 'em tidy. There's a good bit o' money there for an able body. If the furnishings is what she ree-presents and you'd conseeder takin' me in on shares—I might conseeder—"

"Consider what?" gasped Dulcie.

"Conseeder advancing for the storage of the furnishings—with the furnishings as security o' course. And doin' some cleanin' toward the matter o' what ma rent would be. Mind I'm no sayin' I would until I see the furnishings. I'm on'y conseederin'—I'll have the matter o' some ladders—" she peered again down the dark hallway, "and I'd want a neat ticket in the window—"

At midnight, by the embers of their dying fire, Felicia lay with Dulcie's rug about her, plaintively pretending from the feel of the chair, that she was the young Felice of those long years ago, journeying toward the beloved House in the Woods. It was an easy pretense for she could glimpse the dark waters of the bay and the silent ships drifting on the tide. A spring fog seeped through the open windows and she was quite as miserable as she had been on that memorable trip. Beside her in her own chair, Dulcie talked and talked, a thousand details that Felicia's tired wits could not follow. It did not seem at all a miracle to her that she had found Janet. She accepted her with the simplicity with which she accepted any one who came into her life.

"The garden is a little old pippin," Dulcie boasted. "We can make that all O. K. in a day or so, but the house did stump me! Janet MacGregor is an angel sent straight from heaven. If I ever get a commish' to sculpt an angel I shall use Janet MacGregor for my model, little Miss By-the-Day," she sighed drowsily, "your middle name must be Luck."

"My middle name is Trenton," answered Felicia literally. "Dulcie, I am going to tell you something. Something you must remember. When our little garden is lovely again, if any one—ever—kisses—you out there and you love him—don't let any one take you away from him. Because it might be too long afterward that you come back—you might be old like Grandy and Piqueur—so that he wouldn't know you when he saw you. He wouldn't know that you were the—Girl,—"

Something in the level flatness of her tones almost broke the Sculptor Girl's heart. She reached out her hand and caught Felicia's and gripped it hard. She did not say much but what she said Felicia found strangely comforting.

"Why—" her reply was the breathless reply of discovery, "I hadn't noticed till now—how young your hands are!"

They awoke to the dazzling wonder of the new day, a bit stiff from their unaccustomed couches but exuberant over the adventure. Almost before they had finished their simple breakfast the excited Janet MacGregor appeared.

It was Dulcie Dierckx, impractical Dulcie Dierckx, who took charge. She was a very different person from the hysterical girl that Felicia had brought home with her two days before.

"You'd better go to your by-the-day." Dulcie was almost saucy. "Babiche and I will stay and guard the fort. I'll show Janet all the dirt, I think there's enough to satisfy even her unholy craving—and then if she still wants to go into the deal I can go to the storage place. I know I could arrange it because I did it once for Aunt Jen; it's a bore, it takes all kinds of time, you'd hate it and—" tears threatened, "unless I'm doing something for my keep I can't stay."

Little Miss Day agreed gratefully. She departed with tactful discretion before Janet and Dulcie began their argument. Which was some argument! But in the end they came to something like a feasible plan and when they did—! Ah! if you could have seen what those two accomplished that day! Each put the other on her mettle. They did wonderful team work. Janet agreed readily enough when she saw the massive furniture that she had ample security. Dulcie fairly browbeat the storage manager, and between the two of them they actually arranged for a small van load of furniture to be delivered at Montrose Place before dark. As for the rest of it, Dulcie had a wrist-watch, that for all we know is still reposing in the dusty pawnbroker's at which she cheerfully hocked it. She'd always wondered why she had it and I don't believe she ever remembered to go back for it. And Janet had a nephew, a cross-eyed nephew, who was an odd-job man. Can't you see Dulcie buying the bags of creamy kalsomine and the brushes and Janet packing up her pails and scrubbing things?

There never was such a polishing, such a mopping, such a scrubbing such a—whisper!—fumigating—since the old house had been built! They'd sense enough not to try too much. They confined their efforts to the nursery, Janet's basement room and Mademoiselle's old quarters. Dulcie knew she mustn't touch the shepherdesses there. Felice had told her about the battle royal with the sponge, but in the nursery—well, the crossy-eyed nephew couldn't work fast enough to suit Dulcie. She feverishly grabbed a brush herself and slashed about delightedly in kalsomine. Janet bossed the nephew and Dulcie, Dulcie bossed Janet and the nephew, the nephew nearly uncrossed his eyes from trying to follow all the instructions the two shouted at him.

At quarter after six when Miss By-the-Day climbed slowly up the stairs, reaching out delightedly for Babiche, who had been sleeping in the top-most niche of the stair, two tired and aching women flung open the door of the nursery. They were smiling. Neither of them could think of a thing to say, but a curious mingling of odors told their story for them. The freshness of the clean, scarcely-dried, kalsomine, the faint tinge of smoke from the bit of fire, the delicious soapy cleanliness and a wholesome whiff of barley broth floated out into the dusty hallway to the little person on the stairs. She looked through the doorway and saw clean walls, creamy yellow; windows that glistened, a glowing fire, a tiny table spread for two—Janet knew her place!—Grandy's fat sofa under the dormer windows, the stately hall table flat against the side wall, Maman's chaise-longue, the slender chaise-longue with its flowered chintz cushions, beside the fire—

When Felicia saw that she reached out her arms and sighed contentedly, rapturously—

"Oh! it's home—it's really home—"

Who shall say which of them won the greater triumph in those mad April days? Sometimes it seemed as though it must be the valiant Janet, who fought with soap and brushes and won Gargantuan victories over squalor and filth. Sometimes it seemed as though it were the belligerent Dulcie, who bravely tried to forget that she had ever wept over "wet mud" and wanted to die—die! Why, she couldn't live hard enough, the days seemed so short! She threw herself heart and soul into the fray; she grubbed in the bit of garden, she toiled upstairs and down with the clumsy paint brushes. Whenever she lacked for pence she strode forth to the art school where she had once been a pupil in the days before "Uncle Al" had put her money into the disastrous plumbing venture, and boldly demanded the right to pose at fifty cents an hour. With the bravado born of her new grip on life she brazenly descended on the "beastly Aunt Jen" and demanded and received her trunks and personal trinkets.

As for Felice, her victories were humbler—they were small, silent victories over Self. In the long hours while she sat sewing she fought out her little battle—the battle of hating uncongenial toil. It was not easy, for she had an honest hatred of it.

Not even the goal in sight could make her like being a "by-the-day." Moreover as she grew wiser in the matter of reckoning she realized the utter impossibility of actually earning, with her hands, the appalling sum that she owed. She could only work on blindly from day to day, hoping, hoping against hope that she would find the Portia Person. She never gave that up. Long hours after her day's work was over she kept following elusive trails that led nowhere. She would never admit defeat in that respect. She would find him and she was sure that he could solve the difficulties that beset her.

Slowly she was evolving a philosophy of life. It began with a bitter feeling that she had been cheated, that Grandy hadn't been fair to her, to let her grow up so ignorant of life, so ignorant of the ways to earn a living. But gradually she began to discover that neither Grandy nor Mademoiselle nor Maman herself could have taught her to live.

"It's my stub, stub, stubborn way—" she chided herself, "I won't let any one tell me—I think it's only when I work that I learn—Work! that's the thing to learn with—it's like the 'Binnage'—the second digging of the garden to make things grow—its not pleasant but after all—it must be done."

Next she found out that it wasn't enough to work—you must like to do it! Janet now, she liked to clean—and so she did it beautifully, did it superlatively, whereas when Dulcie or Felice tried, it was only half done. So Felice set herself to "like to" be a "by-the-day."

And that was the time she discovered that to like to do anything you must make it genuinely amusing.

"We should be immensely gay when we're working, shouldn't we, Dulcie?" she asked one evening when they leaned far out of the windows to watch the ships in the harbor. "Think how gay the sailors are. I remember one who whistled while he cleaned the deck—he did it very quickly, much more quickly than the stupid boys who didn't whistle—I think when I sew I shall whistle,—not aloud—" she laughed, "it would wake folks' babies! But in my heart—"

She watched Janet vigorously sweeping the area-way.

"Look Dulcie, it's not the way that she does it that matters—you and
I brush as hard—but it's because it's Janet brushing—the broom acts
as though it were Janet instead of just a broom—isn't it delightful?
I shall have to make my needle me—and you shall—"

They were silent. All had not been victory for poor Dulcie. There was the model stand and the tools and the "wet mud," but the part of Dulcie that had wanted to create seemed dead—it seemed to have died back there that day when she had tried to die in "Aunt Jen's" house. Morning after morning when Felice went away she would encourage her. She would assure her that when she came back at night she would hear Dulcie calling "It's begun." But alas, it never was—it was only by keeping madly, tempestuously busy at other things that Dulcie endured the nag of some of those April days. Sometimes she gave up entirely, flung herself prostrate on the sofa under the dormer windows and wept until she was no longer Dulcie, until she was merely a limp rag of a human who wouldn't even speak to Felice, who actually cursed when Janet tried to bring her soup.

But somehow or other the three of them squeezed and bumped along, a precarious existence really, which would have been utterly impossible if it hadn't been for Janet. She it was, who held the purse strings. She it was who cooked sad looking, unpalatable, but none the less nourishing, stews and broths. You should have seen Janet during one of those solemn conclaves with the young lawyer whom Justice Harlow had assigned to the case. He was a frankly gloomy lawyer. He was sure they were wasting time and money and energy in their attempt to make the house habitable—he didn't believe it was possible, he didn't think that even another thirty days extension of time could be procured and as for the debts on the property, they looked to his impoverished purse like the combined national debts of all the Americas. He was a very young lawyer. He was sorry, he said he was sorry, protesting that he was doing everything on earth he could do to help "The Case." He always called the house "The Case."

Janet called him back one night after the two younger women had left. She informed him bluntly that she didn't think he was anything much of a lawyer. He retorted hotly that he'd done everything any lawyer could do. Janet eyed him cannily.

"Where might ye be livin'? You're no married?"

He admitted his single blessedness; he named his address; he on further urging named his room rent. And Janet came back at him with a practical ferocity that was magnificent.

"If you're so keen on helping my little lady why are ye no livin' here and paying her rent?"

He murmured things about neighborhoods and slums and not being able to afford to live in such a hole and appearances and other futile excuses. But in the end he followed her meekly up the stairway and was shown the glories of Grandy's old room. It was a huge cavern of a room, a whale of a room, with a curtained alcove holding a stately bed, with wide windows overlooking the bay and a low squatty chair beside the fireplace. While he was looking Dulcie tripped down the stairs and winked solemnly at Janet. And she too assailed him. He hadn't an argument left when the two of them were through with him. He felt like a henpecked Mormon husband; he was red with wrath at the Sculptor Girl's cool bossiness; he loathed the very idea of living in the same house with such a person. Especially when she told him bluntly, that he'd have to go to Felice and beg to be taken in. Felicia mustn't know that he'd been "influenced" she put it.

In the end he capitulated, clambering up to the nursery and tapping meekly on the door, stammering as he made his request.

But he'd his reward straight with—the reward of her wide, sincere smile.

"How stupid I was not to offer it to you! Of course you must have longed for it directly you saw it—oh, do you know I think you must have felt it was just the place for a lawyer! Shall I tell you something—" she was down the stairs, running like a girl to point out the wonders of the room. "You see Grandy's father was a Judge and he knew Louisa's uncle—It was Louisa's uncle who used to live in this house and both those men used to sit in this room and talk and talk and talk—Mademoiselle told me about it. You shall have Grandy's father's picture over the fireplace. We shall bring it up from the hall. It's a beautiful picture—you'll just admire him! And to think— we haven't unpacked the books, Grandy's father's books—" she smiled over her shoulder at Dulcie as she always smiled when she quoted that slangy young person, "That will be Some Law!"

All the same he was young enough so that he apologized profusely to his friends for having such a disreputable lodging,

"Yep, I know it's a rookery and a rotten neighborhood, but I have reasons—" he said it darkly as though he were plotting. He didn't yet know that a very powerful reason was Dulcie. He was so busy hating her, thinking up things to say back when she let her saucy, slangy phrases loose at him that he didn't know how easily he was learning to love the solemn heavy furniture that surrounded him, the bit of fire in the grate on chilly evenings, and Dulcie herself, poking her head in the door crying,

"How is the majesty of the law? Would it mind lifting a ladder for a poor woiking goil?"

The day he knew that the house was home was the languorous spring day when he stopped to stare at a bowl of strawberries in the niche outside his door. Their purchase had driven Janet almost to drink. She plainly told Felice they'd all end in the poorhouse. But Felice hadn't minded, she had inscribed a card, on which in her spidery slanting scrawl was written,

"NOTICE TO LAWYERS AND SCULPTORS: HAVE SOME ON ME."

"By gad!" he breathed, grinning, "she's coming on!"

He didn't protest at Dulcie's demurely calling him "The Rumor," not even when she added, "Because as a lawyer, you're a false alarm."

He took his humble part in the gigantic house-cleaning. He opportunely called to mind a chance acquaintance in the Street Cleaning department, whereupon an ancient white wings was stationed in the block.

Of course the White Wings couldn't remove the dingy lace curtains and the grimy lodgings signs from the disconsolate six houses across the way; but he could and did do wonders to gutters and sidewalks. The hordes that had inhabited the great house had really made most of the noise, the "across the street" houses were fairly quiet.

Spring did a lot. She draped new ivy over the dilapidated church and rectory; she let the gray-green leaves of the wistaria flutter gaily over the cornices; she touched with magic the old denuded stumps of the trees of heaven and the back yard became a shaded retreat. Sometimes at twilight when Felice came home, it seemed to her that the long ago look of the street was creeping slowly back—perhaps, of course, it was just that she was growing used to it or else it was the tender light through the old willows that made the spirit of things strangely young again.

She always came home bubbling with adventure now. Dulcie would sit shamelessly smoking a cigarette filched from the lawyer and listen by the hour while little Miss By-the-Day imitated her employers and their maid servants and their man servants and the strangers within their gates. The two women would sit in the back yard on the old iron benches, which Janet had found in the depths of the coal bin. The lawyer would walk grandly about, and chuckle and chuckle while Felicia pretended she was a very fat customer who was always going to begin dieting after "Mrs. Poomsonby's bridge luncheon." And when Janet was gone for her bit of walk—the dear soul liked to gossip with her old neighbors four blocks over—Dulcie and the lawyer would laugh until tears blinded them at Felicia pretending she was Janet. Oh, but she was inimitable at that!

Janet arguing with the fish man, Janet experimenting with the telephone the lawyer had put in the hall, Janet simultaneously polishing a window and singing.

"Ouch—" Felicia would pull imaginary rheumatism through an imaginary casement, "Oh weel—oh weel—to look at the du-urt! it's sickenin'! weel—

You tak the high road
And I'll tak the low road
And I'll be in Scotland before ye,
Oh, I and my true luv shall never be—

oot of the way below there—summat is drapping—Th' De'il tak my bit of soapie!—

'On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.'"

The folk who lived in the rear alley used to lean, sill-warming fashion on their windows, the children shrilly whistling the chorus, the men forgetting their pipes, the women sniffling as women do when they hear old ballads, for of course once Felice had started "pretending" she didn't stop. A moment after she'd been Janet she'd be Marthy, dear, lean, grizzled old Marthy, dead these many years, singing,

"In the gloaming
Oh, my darling,
Think not bitterly of me—"

It never occurred to any of them, least of all Felice, how many, many hours she spent "pretending." Two evenings a week at chess with Uncle Peter—(thank heaven Dudley Hamilt came no more—!) Sunday afternoons with the Wheezy's gentle old fellow sufferers, almost all the other evenings in the garden. She was using ounce after ounce of her precious strength, pouring out her self to the whole world around her, making it laugh, making it weep, making it thrill, making it—work.

She stopped one morning to see Justice Harlow. He stared at her as though it were the first time he had ever seen her. She no longer wore eccentric garb. Dulcie had divided with her. She had a simple hat and a serge frock. She was shabby, to be sure, but it was no longer a ridiculous shabbiness. She was pale and wan, even paler than when she had first come to him but the timidity, the uncertainty, had gone. Her eyes were deeper. They shone like jewels; the softened outlines of her profile were thinner, clearer; her beautiful mouth had grown firm and a bit of gray showed in her hair. She was altogether adorable, like a wee wren after a stormy day. The stilted phrases were slipping away. She spoke more alertly. Bits of Dulcie's lingo were creeping into her speech. But she still answered with a literalness that took one's breath away.

"Now whadda ye know about that?" asked the Justice all unconscious that he was colloquial.

"I do not know anything about it," she said demurely, and added with one of her casual references to the illustrious dead—she treated them all as though they were contemporary—"I think Heloise might know what to do. One of the things Abelard loved about her was that she always knew what to do—she was vairee good at administrating, like Janet, don't you think?"

All the while she was filling her house—with gentle paupers! Think you how Janet raged the day she brought home the most useless citizen of all—the Poetry Girl.

Felice had been sewing for two or three days for a dentist's wife, a rather amusing job for she was stationed in an upstairs window that let one look down two streets, and at the other window in the room the dentist's white haired mother sat and gossiped softly about all the persons who came.

It was the dentist's mother who saw the Poetry Girl first, a thin figure who walked uncertainly up and down the street, eyeing doctors' signs. It was a regular streetful of doctors.

"There's a poor thing that's lost her address," crooned Mrs. Miller, "she does look sick. It's a tooth, too, see how she holds her hand to her face, you can almost see the pain."

Felice saw, that is she thought she saw. Of course no one could really see such an ENORMOUS pain as the one that was sweeping the Poetry Girl along. It was too big to see.

It was something like this. Orange red, pale blue, E flat minor, acrobatic, Ariel-like in its changes. Sometimes it made her careen heavily toward the curb—that was the time it made her head seem big and her feet very far away. Sometimes she could walk but she wanted to scream, sometimes she felt like a volcano, a Vesuvius of shooting pains, sometimes it hammered at her ears and she couldn't hear at all. But one thing she remembered all the time, that she had exactly twenty-seven cents in her purse.

She was planning whether she'd better dash up to a door and act as though she had an appointment and give a false address for the bill to be sent or whether she'd better announce she hadn't any way to pay the dentist and would he take his pay in poetry, or whether she'd just shriek, "Stop it!"

In the end her body decided for her. It just flopped down outside the house where Felicia and Mrs. Miller were watching.

The Poetry Girl was normally very sweet tempered but she wasn't at all her usual self when she opened her eyes. She was in an operating chair and she looked accusingly at the man beside her.

"You shouldn't sprinkle me," she murmured reproachfully, "I'm wet enough as it is and I've no rubbers;—" the faint blue shadows under her eyes accused them all. Her thin hand tried to pat her rumpled hair, "I do believe you've lost another hairpin for me—I'd only three—" she was petulant, "And if you do pull it I can't pay you—" she was defiant. "Not unless you need some poetry written.

"Or a play. I can write a play. But I can't sell knit underwear or I can't do general housework—I'm only—a toothache—Bobby Burns wrote me—maybe you've read me—"

Of course Felicia took her home with her,—that was foreordained from the moment she saw her,—but she had a beautiful row getting her! The Poetry Girl had a "stub, stub, stubborn way" too. She was suspicious, she was wary. She said she didn't care a damn where she went but she didn't want any one to take her there. The dentist agreed with her. He took Felicia aside and told her it was his private opinion that the girl was either drunk or on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he thought the best thing to do would be to notify a police matron. In short he was cool and practical. If there was anything Felicia Day couldn't endure it was a Van Dyke beard on a cool and practical man. She told the Sculptor Girl afterward that it took strength of mind not to pull his silly beard off.

She tucked her thimble in her pocket, folded her apron and asked,

"Will you promise not to let her go till I get my hat?"

"You can't manage her," said the dentist, "I tell you she's irresponsible."

"So am I," confided Felicia serenely, "but I'll come back to-morrow for the sewing. As soon as I get her in bed and Janet brings her some soup she'll be perfectly all right—"

But all the same it wasn't easy getting her home. It was a long walk. Felicia hadn't two carfares and she had forgotten to ask the dentist for money. To make bad matters worse a heavy down pour of rain overtook them a good half mile from the house. Its cool splatter seemed to bring the Poetry Girl to her senses. She laughed a bit.

"What an idiot!" she exclaimed, "you must think me—my name is Blythe Modder, and usually I'm sane. You see just before I went into that dentist's I did such a fool thing. I bought some patent liniment and put on my tooth and I didn't notice until afterward that it said 'external use only'—I was such an idiot—I think it went to my head— I'm very much better now."

"Well, come along and get some dry clothes and tea anyhow, then you'll be vairee all right."

She left her with Janet while she ran for the dry clothes. She left her on Janet's immaculate bed in Janet's atrocious dressing gown. Her clothes she unceremoniously turned over to Janet to dry, leaving that practical soul verbose with disgust.

Felicia herself was drenched and she loved it. She was loth to strip the damp clothes off; she felt like running miles and miles in the rain. She was dreamily happy, dreamily miserable; she felt like the day—all tears and smiles both. She dropped the outer garments to floor and pulled her shoes and stockings off. Babiche sat up and begged for a cracker. Felicia stooped, her damp hair clinging to her beautiful forehead, the long scant chemise that had been Octavia's falling loosely from her smooth shoulders.

"Poor Babiche," she crooned, "When your mistress does come in—" So intent was she on reaching for the cracker box that she lifted her voice a bit. Dulcie, outside the door ready to tap on it, swung it open just in time to glimpse the charming posture.

Felicia blushed like a sixteen year old. She reached for her dressing gown and pulled it toward her.

But Dulcie Dierckx, slamming the door behind her, leaned against the panels fairly devouring Felicia with her eyes.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried in absolute ecstacy; "Oh, Pandora! Pandora! don't move! How could I have been so stupid not to have seen you before! Oh, please drop the coat! Oh! Oh! you adorable—you beautiful person—you little old peach!"

Felicia laughed. Laughed her soft, breathless laugh and drew the gown closer.

"You—you're rather embarrassing—" she sighed, "Though of course," her eyes danced mischievously, "my knees and my ankles and my insteps are vairee nice indeed—I got them all from Louisa, Margot says—and my hands—" she stretched one out—"They're Grandmother Trenton's—and I think I have nice ears—but the rest of me—" she shrugged, "The rest of me won't do at all—my mouth is too big and—no, I wouldn't be at all your Pandora—it's dark here—that's why you thought you saw her—"

"I saw her," insisted the Sculptor Girl stubbornly. "And you'd be a brute not to help me—I—look here," she lied casually, "I didn't tell you but I've managed a bit of money—I'm not asking you to pose for nothing—I can pay you more than you earn at your sewing—"

"Oh, money," she stammered. "I didn't think about money—Sculptor
Girl—how could you—"

"Taxes," ejaculated the Sculptor Girl bluntly. "Interest! You can't forget 'em or we'll all be back in the gutter you know—So that's settled—to-morrow morning at nine—I'll have a good fire—you won't mind awfully, will you, if I hang wet cheese cloth around you—?"

She was trying to keep the excitement out of her voice but her eyes were sparkling. She no longer saw Felicia, she only saw Pandora—the Pandora of her dreams!

But all the same, after she'd lighted her cigarette in her own room she drew a long breath and pottered about her few possessions until she found something pawnable.

In the shop she bargained coolly enough with the pawn-broker, pocketed the money she fought for and as she was leaving stopped to gaze casually at the motley array of things in the dusty case. She stared unbelievingly at a quaint mahogany box, warily priced two or three other things and finally asked "how much for the damaged writing case?" Ten minutes later she fled with it under her arm. It didn't look like much. It was quite empty and it would make a nice box for Pandora to be opening. But over and over her heart was pounding,

"It's the same Bee on it that's on her brushes—it's the same Bee she has said was on the silver—it's—oh, if it only could be hers!"

She burst in upon the Poetry Girl (now warm and snug in some of Dulcie's own garments) and Felicia sitting by the nursery fire. They were having a friendly little party. Felicia introduced the two girls with the affable hope they'd be nice neighbors. "Blythe's coming to have the front room next as soon as Cross Eyes can pink-wash it—" Her eyes glimpsed the box, she fairly ran for it, "That's Maman's," she exclaimed, "How did you find it?" She hugged it delightedly; she opened it—"Even its emptiness smells nice," she sighed.

"Oughtn't there to be a secrud pocket in it, m'loidy? With the missing will and the dagger he stabbed her with?"

"Nothing like that," laughed Miss Day with one of her delicious excursions into slang, "it was just for Maman's writing things—but I'm that proud to have it—"

She was still holding the box when Janet brought up their dinner.
After the Poetry Girl had left, she settled herself for her scolding.
She knew that she was due for it. For naturally she had to confess
that she'd asked Miss Modder to come live in the house.

"What's she paying?" demanded Janet.

"A good bargain, I made. It's like this—she writes, you know, so she doesn't get her money everyday as you and I do, Janet. She's more like—well, Dulcie when she's sculpting. So I made a bargain with her that she'd not pay her rent just now, that she'll pay later. She's to pay some girl's rent for as long as she stays herself rent free, do you see? As soon as she can she'll pay her own rent and she'll pay another rent too, that's vairee business like, don't you think, Dulcie?"

Dulcie solemnly assured Janet she "couldn't beat it." She offered to enter into a similar agreement. Janet couldn't get any sense out of either of them. She retired baffled and defeated.

"All the same," confessed Dulcie, "You've got to quit bringing home losers, Miss Day. You ought to pick one winner just to square yourself with Janet."

Felicia promised. And, mirabile dictu, kept her word the very next week.

Of all the persons that her mistress brought home Janet really approved of only that one. But that one, as she grudgingly admitted, made up for the whole "shiftless crew."

"She's Christian," she assured Felice solemnly, "A Christian." Which was the more delightful from the fact that her sect was one that Janet had hitherto scorned as "Irish Roman Catolic." But just to look at Molly O'Reilly was to know you'd love her. Fat, oh, ridiculously fat, in comparison with the rest of that skinny household—ruddy, glowingly ruddy, beside that pale-faced "crew." Just by the law of contrasts they adored her when they saw her—especially after they'd tasted her heavenly food.

Miss By-the-Day met her in the laundry of a great house where she'd put in a day mending curtains and table linen. Not a bad sort of job if one had a suitable spot to work in; but a laundry, a steamy, soapy, wet-woolens-smelling laundry is not a comfortable place to sew. By noon Felice wanted to indulge in one of Dulcie's weeps—she was so nervous—when there entered, bearing a tray, Molly O'Reilly, with her blue sleeves rolled over her dimpled elbows and her red hair lightly dusted with flour.

"Here's something to put inside you—" she called to the perspiring colored woman who was washing and the tiny white person who was laboriously darning thin net, "something to think on save work." She stole a keen glance at the seamstress. "Yours goes on this bit of table; Susy, put down the top of your toobs and get a stool."

Ah, that food! Even Margot couldn't cook like Molly O'Reilly. Why, Molly cooked as Janet scrubbed, as the Poetry Girl wrote, as the Sculptor Girl modeled—by inspiration! There wasn't anything on that tray she put before Felicia that hadn't been made from crumbs that fell from the rich man's feast. Yet so cunningly had she warmed it, so deftly had she flavored it, so daintily had she garnished it that it seemed food ambrosial. Felicia let her fork slide into delectable crust underneath which snuggled the tenderest chicken she'd ever tasted in her life. Bits of carrots and celery and potatoes drifted idly about a sea of creamy gravy—um—when you go to Montrose Place order "Old Fashioned Chicken Pie."

The artist who had created this delight sat easily against the laundry sill and grumbled.

"Coompany, coompany all hours. And niver a sound of them reaching the kitchen. Meals from marning till night and me niver seeing them ate. You'd think I'd be contint—the wages is so gr'rand, but honest, Susy, I was happier doing gineral housework for brides at twenty per mont'— at least I'd a bit of heart put in me, I heard something savin' a voice on the house 'phone sayin',

"'Dinner fur eight at seven o'clock—' I'm going to quit. As soon as iver I can find a partner. I'm going to open one of these stylish tea rooms where's I can peep through the door and see me food bein' appreciated—"

Can't you almost hear Felicia talking with her, describing the kitchen and the back yard and the dumb-waiter that goes up to Grandy's room and stops at Maman's room and on up to the old nursery? Can't you see Felicia triumphantly bringing Mollyhome to look it over? And can't you almost hear the lovely Irish songs that Molly's mother taught her? And Felicia pretending that she is Molly's mother? If you can't, why I'm afraid you haven't really understood Felicia.

So the days grew longer and sweeter and the little after-dinner group in the garden grew bigger—think of the excitement of the day when the lawyer brought home the architect and his timid wife! They came to live in Maman's room, the room that Felice had intended to keep for herself. But you'll know presently why she gave it to them. You remember it was only one flight up. He was a young architect well able to climb but Mrs. Architect couldn't. And he was a very new architect. Felice said staunchly that she wouldn't think of having an old fat successful architect around, that he'd be bored with all the small jobs the house needed, but this obliging young one, now HE was quite willing to work hours over where new bathrooms might go—if they ever had any tub money, or where old lattices could be replaced—if they ever had any lattice money. You see the idea was that he could pay his room rent architecting, a "vairee practical" idea Felice assured Janet. But Janet sniffed.

Everybody brought somebody else. Janet didn't approve of any of them but she did love them all! That was the unanswerable argument about all these persons who flocked to the house in Montrose Place—they were so lovable! Such buoyant souls, who hadn't quite gotten a grip on life but were pathetically sure that once they did—!

They triumphantly felt that the fact they'd been starving mostly, helped to prove their genius. Though Felice could never see it that way. Long after the rest were in bed she used to walk passionately up and down Mademoiselle's tiny room.

"They're all starlings singing that they can't get out—it's not fair —not a bit right—they ought not to starve, they ought not to freeze. And folks who say so are stupid! You can't grow roses like weeds—just anywhere! And they're going to be the roses in the garden of world— they ought to be in the sun, they ought to be watched so carefully— why can't the stupid old world see it! But it doesn't. It just tramples and chokes and freezes them until it's a wonder they evaire do blossom at all. And di-rectly they do—the world's surprised—huh— I should think it would be! It's not fair. It's all wrong. When I find the Portia Person I shall do something, I shall buy the church next door and I shall make a school. It shall be a school where you learn to do one useful thing that will earn your bread and butter. And the rest of the time—you shall dream." Babiche was a patient listener. But even Babiche yawned at all the Utopian theories with which her mistress would reform the world.

Do you remember the chauffeur who promised Felice a "joy-ride"? Can't you see his fatuous grin one day as he listened to a drawling young- sounding voice over the telephone of Seeley's Boarding house, a voice that he couldn't remember at all, demurely saying,

"You said you'd give me a joy-ride sometime if I had a new bonnet—I have. I really look like anybody else now. I do need that joy-ride just now, could you come for me?"

But can't you see that chauffeur's rueful smile when he reached the address she gave him and saw a nurse bringing the palefaced Painter Boy out the hospital door? Felice ran ahead of them, breathless with achievement.

"He is doing vairee nicely. His leg is better. It's only his spirit that's rather drowned, so I thought if he had a joy-ride and we took him home—"

At least Janet found comfort from the fact that the Painter Boy was the last pauper to be added to the list—there weren't any rooms or beds for any more! But the house hummed with their activities, rang with their arguments and theories, echoed with their laughter—and sighed with their midnight tears. They were so young! So impatient! So eager to set the river of life afire!

Dinner time was a joy. They usually had dinner in the garden and dinner was always THE DISH! Even with Janet's fingers on the purse strings and Molly's capable hands in the mixing the slender funds would not stretch to more than—THE DISH. It might be a huge Irish stew, or something Molly called Dago Puddin' (there never was such spaghetti as her Dago Puddin') or a gigantic pie made of pigeons that had to cook all day to become edible. Sometimes Molly "slipped 'em somethin'" that she claimed was left from her catering business, but usually they ate only what their pooled funds could pay for and leaned back content to listen while Felice "pretended" or scolded or encouraged them; her leadership was utterly unconscious, her calm assumption that she was a very old lady hypnotized them into thinking she was. She made no rules or regulations. She frankly let them know that perhaps they could live there a day or perhaps a century; that the length of residence depended on the finding of the elusive, untraceable Portia Person. They all searched ardently for him. They all knew that when they "made good" they would have to find some fellow who hadn't and help him. Already Octavia's motto was lettered under her lovely portrait over the drawing-room fireplace in the charming simulation of medieval script that the Poetry Girl loved to make,

"She would like you to be happy here.
You can't be truly happy if you are
making anyone else unhappy."

The days swept by so fast, Felicia brave as she was, didn't dare count them! Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, oh, it seemed as though they surely must find the Portia Person now that they were all looking! Yet each one in his heart generously hoped it would be Felicia herself who found him.

In spite of her high resolves to learn to "like to be a by-the-day" she found some days impossible.

She grew to hate Thursdays. Sometimes it seemed as though she couldn't please anybody on Thursday. Thursday meant that she sewed in households that suffered from a feverish complaint known as Maid's- Day-Out. Thursdays always seemed to be associated with worse and more hurried luncheons than other days—Thursdays she had to open doors and answer telephones—she used to think sometimes she could have stood all the other days if it hadn't been for Thursdays.

One Thursday in particular stood out as a terrific day. To begin with it rained. A drizzling, penetrating, gloomy kind of a rain that brought her into the Woman's Exchange exceedingly moist, and seemed to have permanently warped whatever courtesy time had left in the soul of the Disagreeable Walnut.

"—to Eighteen Willow Court—" grumbled the cross old woman sliding a card with the address across the littered counter to Felice.

One comfort was, Willow Court was not far and the "Eighteen" was emblazoned in enormous gilt letters over an elaborate plate-glass entrance. It was Felice's first apartment house experience. She walked with humble awe through an enormous mirrored hallway lined with the largest, dustiest, artificial foliage that ever disgraced vegetation.

An intolerant colored boy, pompous in green-and-gilt livery eyed her insolently. She stated her errand.

"The help's entrance is on the side street," he informed her impudently. "You turn right around and go right out where you just came in and go around to the side where I tells you and go in there and you tell Joe I sent you. If he hain't too busy maybe he'll run you up on the freight elevator, but if he is you can walk. It's apartment 41, fourth floor, front."

Ah, you should have seen Octavia's daughter, tired and little and dripping and frumpy, lift her chin and look through and through that impudent Senegambian! He confessed afterward she looked so like somebody's high-toned ghost that it had sent the shivers down his spine. And just when he was ready to hear the wrath that her eyes threatened she turned abruptly and walked away so regally that he found himself muttering,

"I didn't notice she was such a high-stepping lady—"

The service entrance and Joe and the freight elevator conquered, she found herself face to face with new insolence, this time from a frowsy maid who led her grudgingly into the living-room that stretched across the front of the apartment. From ornate curtains a plump and fretful woman emerged,

"You're fifteen minutes late—she said she'd send some one at eight o'clock—but come along, sew in the children's bedroom—"

Felice followed through the whole untidy apartment into the narrow cluttered room. It appeared that the children were not yet dressed nor had their beds been put in order and they sat, two weedy pallid- looking mites, in the midst of a tremendous heap of broken toys and fought desperately for the possession of an eyeless, hairless carcass of a doll. A sewing machine piled high with garments was in front of the one broad window that opened on the gloomy whiteness of the court. An overturned basket, from which oozed tangled spools and myriads of buttons, lay on the floor in front of the machine. A stiff-backed gilt chair stood beside it.

"I cut out some pinafores yesterday," continued the fretful voice, "I wish you would run up the seams of those on the machine—french-seam them, please—and if I get time I'll show you how I want the collars— "

Felicia stood, absurdly little beside her plump employer, and spoke the first words she'd been given opportunity to utter,

"Good morning, Madame," she said in her clear contralto, "I think you do not understand. The Exchange should have told you that I am a needle-woman—that I do only hand work—I do not understand sewing machines—"

"Not understand sewing machines!" shrilled the kimonoed one, "why anybody with any sense at all can run a sewing machine—"

Felicia smiled her wide ingenuous smile.

"I am not any one at all—but it so happens that I cannot use a sewing machine. Perhaps I can please you with my needle. Or, I can go home." "You can't do anything of the kind. It's the maid's day out and I have to go to a matinee and I'd counted on you to watch the children—" she shook her head in exasperation. "Well, take off your hat, don't stand there gawping. I suppose I'll have to put up with it. Do you know enough to sew on buttons and mend stockings?"

Felicia looked at her curiously for a moment. She couldn't think of any flower or any vegetable that this strange creature was like, or any weed for that matter, and it's very hard to keep the garden of a day in order when strange unexpected things spring up in it. She took off her hat and her dripping coat. She seated herself in the silly chair and began to make something like order out of the mess of crumpled things before her.

Somehow or other the dreadful day limped along. The children howled while they were dressed. Their mother by turns nagged or cajoled them from one crying spell into another. The frowsy maid pulled the covers untidily over the two little beds and half-heartedly picked up a few of the toys and dumped them in a closet. Felicia's delicate fingers guided her needle back and forth making exquisite darns and patches in small petticoats and dresses. One grudging word of approval did her plump and fretful employer allow her.

"You certainly can sew, but you needn't bother to take such small stitches—I wish you'd stop fussing with that and press my frock—"

An ironing board added itself to the other confusion. Propped up between the sewing machine and the uneven metal footboard of a child's crib Felicia eyed it with misgiving. She almost laughed aloud.

"Do you think you'd better risk it with me, Madame?" she asked. "I am not what-you-call-a-blanchisseuse—I have never held a flat-iron—" she was smiling because she was thinking of Grandy's inflexible order "never let her hand be spread on any heavy object."

She lived through My Lady Fretfulness's tirade at this appalling ignorance. She again patiently explained that she was sorry The Exchange had let Madame misunderstand.

"I am only a needlewoman for hand work," she reiterated. "I know only embroidery and mending and knitting and the beading of purses—as they should have informed you—"

The crisis was tided over by the frowsy maid being summoned to press the frock while Felice corralled various hooks and eyes, mended a rip in a stocking heel, helped to fasten the pressed frock around a stiffly corseted person, breathed a patient "yes" to numerous instructions about the children's lunch. She sighed with relief when two o'clock heard the door bang after a second grand exit when a caricatured edition of the mistress passed out in the form of "Sadie's Thursday out."

Not that things were exactly placid after those two disrupting influences had fled to their pleasures. The rain dripped more steadily, the pile of garments heaped upon the sewing machine never seemed to grow less. The children ate the lunches that Felicia found in the half tidied kitchen. The little woman herself carried a plate of not unappetising scraps into the ornate mahogany dining-room, rummaged for a knife and fork and sat down to eat, much to the disapproval of the scraggly nine-year-old who informed her with unconscious imitation of the mother's manner that "Mama doesn't allow her servants to eat in here—"

Followed a bumping, dragging, nerve-racking afternoon that made Felicia long to shriek like the raucous-voiced peddler who had disturbed her precious early morning sleep. By four o'clock things had become unendurable: She viewed her squabbling charges with scorn. They behaved no better nor no worse than "the-thousand-weeds-for-which-we- have-no-name—" yet a spirit of fairness roused itself in Felicia's unhappy thoughts.

"After all, they're not to blame, these two uncared-for savages!" She put down her needle and thimble, walked with a determination toward the wee contestants in a never ending fight and put her hand on the younger child's shoulder. The child jerked away. Felicia's hand went out more firmly this time.

"Let us go out of this room," she said coolly. "I do not think it is possible for any one of us to be happy here any longer—"

The children stared at her. This note of authority was something they did not question. There was something in this wide-eyed pale little seamstress' command that was unlike anything they had ever heard. They followed Felicia meekly enough. They walked quietly while she moved to the least covered and least ornate corner of the apartment—an alcove with a bookcase and a flat writing table.

"This," announced the older child, "won't do. It's Faddo's ONE CORNER and he will not let it be touched."

Felicia laughed. "Then there is but one thing for us to do," she announced leading her small sheep behind her. "We shall have to go back to that unhappy room and make ourselves ONE CORNER—" So back they went and watched her fling open the window. They obeyed her commands without murmuring for the next quarter of an hour. They helped her smooth their lumpy beds. They helped her stack the wrecked toys into an orderly heap. They helped her fold the heaps of mended and unmended garments. And when it was done she sat down on the floor on her knees as she had knelt so many times in her garden and smiled at them. She drew a long breath. You must remember that she had never known a child except that strange child: herself. She could only treat them as she had treated the lost flowers in her garden. Or perhaps, she thought, she could try treating them as she treated Babiche, but in another thoughtful second—(during which she nearly lost their strangely won attention)—she clapped her hands. Those scowls on their puckered little foreheads were like Grandfather's in the old days when he had been wrangling with Certain Legal Matters. She seemed to hear her mother's happy voice:

"It's not easy. But it's a game too. You see some one who is tired or cross or worried and you think 'This isn't pleasant.' Maybe you play a little on your lute, maybe you tell something droll that happened in the kennel or the garden—"

She drew another long breath, "Let's pretend—" she began in her low contralto "let's pretend I have a little lute to make music for you." She sunk back on a hassock and held her arms in position for playing a lute. The children settled in crossed legged heaps and regarded her solemnly.

"I haven't really a lute of course, so I shall have to whistle instead of playing the strings and I can't sing any words while I'm whistling so I shall have to tell you the story before I make the song—the first little song I'm going to do on my lute is about a bridge and how the pretty ladies liked to dance across it."

They pretended it with her rather timorously at first, but presently they were singing "sur le pont d'Avignon." A door swung open and a grizzled man in a dripping raincoat blocked the doorway. The children looked around at him.

"Go away, Papa," ordered the older one casually. "We are pretending."
He laughed.

"And why, may I ask, shouldn't I be allowed to pretend with you?"

"Will you let him pretend with us?" the child asked Felicia gravely. And, Felicia looking at the tired face of the man in the doorway, nodded. He sat down on the edge of the larger bed and if Felicia was aware of him after that she didn't let him know it. Precious golden moments of happiness began to drip into the little room as incessantly as the silvery gray drops of the rain fell outside.

"This," confided Felicia "is a story about a girl who wanted to write a letter. She was a very pretty girl, a French girl. Do you understand French? I don't very well. I didn't learn it when I was little like you—so we'll tell it in English the way Margot—who is a nice fat, comfortable woman who lives in the little house in the woods right beside my big house in the woods—tells me. I'll whistle the gay tune about the girl who is going to write the letter until you can sing it with a tra-la-la-la so—and then while you make the music we'll pretend I'm the girl who wants Peirrot to open his door so she can write the letter by the moonlight because her candle had blown out. Her fire was quite low—she was cold," the children shivered sympathetically, "first we will do the tune—so."

Felicia's beautiful lips closed. Remember that you could hardly see her lips move when she whistled and remember how very beautiful her whistle was! Such a gay little tune, that old, old tune, Au Clair de la Lune! The wide-eyed children watched her, humming as she motioned. The tired man on the edge of the bed watched her, humming unconsciously as the little song sang itself into his eager ears. Higher and sweeter and faster the tripping tune came. Felice was clapping her slender hands to give them the time and now the two children and their father were singing it uproariously while Felice on her hassock gestured and spoke the words.

"—open your door, Peirrot—" Oh Margot! with your translation that should not offend your atheistic master by telling his granddaughter what Dieu really means! The tired man, who'd known the song when he was a boy, was already laughing at Margot's version. But when Felicia came to "Pour l'amour de Dieu" and merrily cried out "For the love of Mike" he caught up a pillow and hugged it as he howled his unholy glee. The four of them shouted together, shouted youthfully, buoyantly, savagely, not caring in the least at what they shouted.

"Oh! Oh!" exulted Felice, "how de-liciously happy we are—"

Under the noise of their merriment the outer door had opened and closed; the tread of overshoes pattered quietly along the hall—she stood in the doorway plump and puffing, her finery bundled clumsily under her coat. She wasn't very pretty. It didn't seem as if she'd ever been young, and it seemed as though she was the angriest woman in the world. And her voice thin, soprano, nasal, rose above the joyous shouting of the merry-makers.

"You didn't know how to run the sewing machine!" she mocked the little woman who was rising from the hassock, "you didn't know how to use the flat-iron! You were much too fine to do the work you came to do! But the minute my back is turned you sit there playing with my children—" the anger was rising higher and higher now, "and flirting with my husband—" The man arose.

"Bertha!" he exclaimed. But even above the strident shrill of the scolding and the abrupt command of the man's voice and the frightened wail of the littlest girl, rose the cry of Felicia's own anger. Did I say her employer was the angriest woman in the world? I was mistaken. The angriest woman in the world was Felicia Day.

Tiny in stature, absurdly dowdy she stood. She didn't raise her voice after that first cry but its deep contralto seemed to penetrate everywhere. All the petty insults that she had endured through all the dreadful Thursdays seemed as nothing compared to the unjust assault of this unfair person.

"You'd better not talk any more," Felicia's clear voice interrupted the angry tirade. "Because I'm not listening and I'm sure you don't know yourself what you're saying. All day long I've been wondering what I could pretend you were like. First I pretended you were a big coarse zinnia. I don't like zinnias at all but some people do—they are gay and bold. Part of the time I thought I'd pretend you were a weed—a rather pretty weed that chokes flowers out if you don't watch it—but you aren't even as much use as a weed—"

Her employer gave a little scream. She stepped closer to her husband and shook his arm a little. He was staring, as though hypnotized, at Felice.

"Stop her! Make her stop!" the woman screamed. "She's insulting me!
Make her stop!"

He pulled himself together.

"Of course you must stop!" he spoke sternly as though he were speaking to a naughty child. "You must be out of your wits to talk that way! You'd—you'd better go—" he ended tamely.

"Much better," Felicia agreed. "But I'd much better go after I get through telling her what I'm going to pretend she is! She's exactly like the Black Blight—that horrid black thing that makes the green leaves droop and the gay little flowers shrivel up—there's only one thing to do to keep it from killing the whole garden—that's to burn it out with coals!"

"Stop that!" the man commanded sharply.

Felicia coolly folded her arms.

"I can't," she answered quietly, "not till I'm through. For I've started now. Besides—" her eager words tumbled more gently now, "all the morning through she told me about things I didn't know—things of which I was ignorant. She thought it vairee dreadful that I did not know how to work with a flat-iron—she thought it vairee stupid that I could not manage the sewing machine—and I was ashamed because I did not know vairee much—and I would be glad if she would tell me how to do these things I do not know. Now, I know something that she does not know—" she stepped very close to the amazed woman, "something I think—she will like to hear about—" a cooing sweetness crept into Felicia's tones, the naive earnestness, the gentle candor of her appeal, silenced both the man and the woman. "She will like to hear about the way to be a mother. I know exactly the way—it's like this— it isn't a bit like the way you do it—" her clear eyes looked straight into those of the awed person before her. "The way you do it is not at all pretty—not at all amusing—you shout and scold and fret and 'don't—don't don't'—all the time! That's not the way to be a mother!" Felicia's eyes grew tender, her hand touched the woman's hand and patted it reassuringly. "I'll tell you the vairee best way to be a mother—evairy morning you have some one make you vairee, vairee pretty with a little lace cap and a rosy pillow—you must stay in your bed and wait till your children come to see you and then you must smile at them and speak vairee softly—this way, saying 'Go out in the garden and be happy, my dears!' And when they come back to you at twilight, oh so vairee happy—" her voice wavered, she was no longer looking at them, she was looking far back across the years. She shivered a little.

"That's the time for you to say, 'Ah, Felicia, you look as though you'd been vairee happy today—in your garden—"

The man strode toward her eagerly. He put his hands on her heaving shoulders and dragged her toward the light.

"Who are you?" he demanded sharply, "tell me quickly, who are you?"

And Felicia looked at him, still dazed, still drifting happily on the flood of her beautiful memories.

"Why, of course I know you—" she whispered gently, "I've been looking everywhere to find you. You're my Portia Person—only the Portia part of you is all quite lost—"