veered round and saw me.

Naturally I expected something very cutting, the more so that a kindly supporter threw me a shilling just then from the top of an omnibus, and a money-box not being so handy as a tambourine, I spent the next few seconds grovelling in the snow at the lady's feet. When I came up again, successful but apprehensive, I found her smiling blandly.

"If I were ten years younger I should be out in the street fighting with you," was the astonishing remark that accompanied a handsome donation to the war chest.

"Do come, all the same," I urged, caught by the lightning gleam in her little grey eye. But she shook her head and returned to the jet and the gold edging—a wicked waste of a warlike grey eye!

So the week drew to an end, and I was no longer to be numbered among those who are passed by at the edge of the pavement. In my foolishness I thought it would be easy to remain on friendly terms with my fellow-hawkers of yesterday; and with that idea in my mind I took an early opportunity of returning to the spot and buying a halfpenny pink paper and a penny white paper and a blue air-ball and a bunch of daffodils.

I met with a chilly civility from them all, with the exception of the flower lady, who shamelessly overcharged me for the daffodils.

"Yes, lady, they are dear this morning; cost me that in the market, they did—thank you, lady, much obliged, I'm sure. Yes, it is cold for a body, sitting out here all day."

That was all—from the friend and sister who had almost offered me her shawl, a week ago, because she saw me shivering.

The sun was shining, and the snow had gone, and I suppose the patch of sky at the western end of the street was all right. But I had been put back in my place as a passer-by; and neither sun nor sky belonged to me any longer.