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“Good evening,” said the reporter, briskly. “You won’t forget to send that stuff about ‘The Bachelor’s’ to me not later than to-morrow?”

She was up and off before he could intercept her. The little servant-maid in the pink cotton frock, with cap askew, was hovering outside his door as Miss Carmichael went out of it.

“Ain’t he beautiful?” she said, with frank pride. “I s’pose you’ll put another one o’ them pieces a-praisin’ him into your paper? There’s lots of the newspaper folks come here to see him; and no wonder—an’ him keepin’ company with all the high ’ristocrats o’ the city.”

A moment more and Alice was upon the street mingling with the throng of workers like herself. Although well in check about matters of mere sentiment, for which there was no longer time in her hurried existence, her thoughts had filled with a vision of two children at their mother’s knee, who shared everything in common until time and the mother’s death and subsequent hard circumstances had forced them apart forever. Ah, well! she did not begrudge Ashton anything she had done for him. But she was glad their mother had not lived.