than that, not in Our Square at least.

How long Cyrus the Gaunt had been there before she discovered him is a matter of conjecture. He slipped in from the Outer Darkness quite unobtrusively and sat about looking thoughtful and lonely. He was exaggeratedly long and loose and mussed-up and melancholy-looking, and first attracted local attention on a bench which several other people wanted more than he did. So he got up and gave it to them. Later, when the huskiest of them met him and explained, by way of putting him in his proper place, what would have happened to him if he hadn't been so obliging, Cyrus absent-mindedly said, "Oh, yes," threw the belligerent one into our fountain, held him under water quite as long as was safe, dragged him out, hauled him over to Schwartz's, and bought him a drink. Thereafter Cyrus was still considered an outlander, but nobody actively objected to his sitting around Our Square, looking as melancholy and queer as he chose. Nobody, that is, until the Bonnie Lassie took him in hand.

Nothing could have been more correct than their first meeting, sanctioned as it was by the majesty of the law. Terry the Cop, who presides over the destinies of Our Square, led the Bonnie Lassie to Cyrus's bench and said; "Miss, this is the young feller you asked me about. Make you two acquainted."

Thereupon the young man got up and said, "How-d'ye-do?" wonderingly, and the young woman nodded and said, "How-d'ye-do?" non-committally, and the young policeman strolled away, serene in the consciousness of a social duty well performed.

The Bonnie Lassie regarded her new acquaintance with soft, studious eyes. There was something discomfortingly dehumanizing in that intent appraisal. He wriggled.

"Yes, I think you'll do," she ruminated slowly.

"Thanks," murmured Cyrus, wondering for what.

"Suppose we sit down and talk it over," said she.

Studying her unobtrusively from his characteristically drooping position, Cyrus wondered what this half-fairy, half-flower, with the decisive manner of a mistress of destiny, was doing in so grubby an environment.

On her part, she reflected that she had seldom encountered so homely a face, and speculated as to whether that was its sole claim to interest. Then he lifted his head; his eyes met hers, and she modified her estimate, substituting for "homely," first "queer," then "quaint," and finally "unusual." Also there was something impersonally but hauntingly reminiscent about him; something baffling and disconcerting, too. The face wasn't right.

"Do you mind answering some questions?" she asked.

"Depends," he replied guardedly. "Well, I'll try. Do you live here?"

"Just around the corner."

"What do you do?"

"Nothing much."

"How long have you been doing it?"

"Too long."

"Why don't you stop?"

For the second time Cyrus the Gaunt lifted his long, thin face and looked her in the eye. "Beautiful Incognita," he drawled with mild impertinence, "did you write the Shorter Catechism or are you merely plagiarizing?"

"Oh!" she said. Surprise and the slightest touch of dismay were in the monosyllable. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I thought—the policeman said you were a down-and-outer."

"I'm the First Honorary Vice-President of the Life Branch of the Organization."

He slumped back into his former attitude. Again she studied him. "No, I don't understand," she said slowly.

But the dehumanizing tone had gone from the soft voice. Cyrus began to rescue his personality from her impersonal ignoring of it. He also felt suddenly a livelier interest in life. Then, unexpectedly, she turned his flank.

"You lurk and stare at my house in the dark," she accused.

"Which house?" he asked, startled.

"You know quite well. You shouldn't stare at strange houses. It embarrasses them."

"Is that the miniature mansion with the little bronzes of dancing street-children in the windows?"

She nodded.

"Why shouldn't I stare? There's a secret in that house!"

"A secret? What secret?"

"The secret of happiness. Those dancing kiddies have got it. I want it. I want to know what makes'em so happy."

"I do," said the girl promptly.

"Yes. I shouldn't be surprised," he assented, lifting his head to contemplate her with his direct and grave regard. "Do you live there with them?"

"They're mine. I model them. I'm a sculptor."

"Good Lord! You! But you're a very good one, aren't you?—if you did those."

"I've been a very bad one. Now I'm trying to be a very good one."

A gleam of comprehension lit his eye. "Oh, then it's as a subject that you thought I'd do. You wanted to sculp me."

"Yes, I do. For my collection. You see, I've adopted this Square."

"And now you're sculping it. I see." He raised himself to peer across at the windows where the blithe figures danced, tiny mænads of the gutter, Bacchæ of the asphalt. "But I don't see why on earth you want me. Do you think you could make me happy?"

"I shouldn't try."

"Hopeless job, you think? As a sculptor you ought to be a better judge of character. You ought to pierce through the externals and perceive with your artistic eye that beneath this austere mask I'm as merry a little cricket as ever had his chirp smothered by the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune."

It was then that she twinkled at him, and the twinkle grew into a laugh, such golden laughter as brightened life to the limits of its farthest echo. Cyrus had the feeling that the gray April sky had momentarily opened up and sent down a sun-ray to illumine the proceedings.

"How wonderfully you mix them!" she cried. "Shall I sculp you in cap and bells?"

"Why should I let you sculp meat all?" She stopped laughing abruptly and looked up at him with wondering eyes and parted lips, drooping just the tiniest bit at the corners. "Everybody does," she said.

At once he understood why everybody did that or anything else she wished. "All right," he yielded. "What am I to sit for?"

"Fifty cents an hour."

Then the Bonnie Lassie got her second surprise from him. His face changed abruptly. An almost animal eagerness shone in his eyes. "Fif-fif-fif—" he began, then recovered himself. "Pardon my performing like a deranged steam-whistle, but do I understand that you offer to pay me for sitting about doing nothing while you work? Did all those cheerful dancers in the window collect pay at that rate?"

"Some of them did. Others are my friends."

"Ah, you draw social distinctions, I perceive."

"I think we needn't fence," said the girl spiritedly. "When I came to you I thought you were of Our Square. If you will tell me just what variety of masquerader you are, we shall get on faster."

"Do you think I don't belong quite as much to Our Square as you do?"

"Oh, I! This is my workshop. This is my life. But you—I should have suspected you from the first word you spoke. What are you? Don't tell me that you are here Settlementing or Sociologizing or Improving the Condition of Somebody Else! Because I really do need your face," she concluded with convincing earnestness. "It's yours at fifty cents an hour."

"And you're not an Improver?"

"Absolutely not. Do I look as if I'd improved myself?"

"You wouldn't do at all for my present purpose, improved," she observed. "Please don't forget that. When can you come to me?"

"Any time."

"Haven't you anything else to do?"

"Nothing but look out for odd jobs. That's why I'm so grateful for regular employment."

"But this isn't regular employment." His face fell. "It's most irregular, and there's very little of it."

"Oh, well, it's fifty cents an hour. And that's more than I've ever earned in my life, Miss Sculptor."

"I am Miss Willard.".

"Then, Miss Willard, you're employing Cyrus Murphy. Do you think I'll sculp up like a Murphy?"

"I don't think you'll sculp up like a Murphy at all, and I've too