who lived there--a foreign lady--a person older than himself.
Very few Americans--indeed, I think none--had ever seen this lady,
about whom there were some singular stories. But Winterbourne
had an old attachment for the little metropolis of Calvinism;
he had been put to school there as a boy, and he had afterward
gone to college there--circumstances which had led to his forming
a great many youthful friendships. Many of these he had kept,
and they were a source of great satisfaction to him.

After knocking at his aunt's door and learning that she was indisposed,
he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come in to
his breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast; but he was drinking
a small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a little table
in the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an attache.
At last he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently a
small boy came walking along the path--an urchin of nine or ten.
The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression
of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features.
He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed
his poor little spindle-shanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat.
He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which
he thrust into everything that he approached--the flowerbeds,
the garden benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In front
of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright,
penetrating little eyes.

"Will you give me a lump of sugar?" he asked in a sharp, hard little voice--
a voice immature and yet, somehow, not young.

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee