He was about to broach a subject that required delicate handling; but an
intuitive knowledge of the womanly character of the young girl aided him
much. It was not so much what he had seen her do as what he knew she was,
that led him to begin his recital.

"We have a good many blocks before us yet," he said, "and I am going to
tell you a little story. Why don't you take the full benefit of my arm?
There," he proceeded, drawing her hand farther through his arm, "now you
feel more like a big girl than like a bit of thistledown. If I get
tiresome, just call 'time,' will you?"

"All right," she laughed. She was beginning to meet halfway this
matter-of-fact, unadorned, friendly manner of his; and when she did meet
it, she felt a comfortable security in it. From the beginning to the end
of his short narrative he looked straight ahead.

"How shall I begin? Do you like fairy tales? Well, this is the soul of
one without the fictional wings. Once upon a time, --I think that is the
very best introduction extant, --a woman was left a widow with one little
girl. She lived in New Orleans, where the blow of her husband's death and
the loss of her good fortune came almost simultaneously. She must have had
little moral courage, for as soon as she could, she left her home, not
being able to bear the inevitable falling off of friends that follows loss
of fortune. She wandered over the intermediate States between here and
Louisiana, stopping nowhere long, but endeavoring to keep together the
bodies and souls of herself and child by teaching. They kept this up for
years until the mother succumbed. They were on the way from Nevada to Los
Angeles when she died. The daughter, then not eighteen, went on to Los
Angeles, where she buried her mother, and endeavored to continue teaching