"I can't tell you how grateful I am. This is no place to talk
to you. Will you let me walk home with you to-night after your
work's done?"

"Will I?" said Birdie, turning to face him. "I will not. Th'
swell mob has shook you, an' a good thing it is. You was travelin'
with a bunch of racers, when you was only built for medium speed.
Now you're got your chance to a fresh start and don't you ever
think I'm going to be the one to let you spoil it by beginnin' to
walk out with a dinin'-room Lizzie like me."

"Don't say that, Birdie," Ted put in.

"It's the truth," affirmed Birdie. "Not that I ain't a
perfec'ly respectable girrul, and ye know it. I'm a good slob, but
folks would be tickled for the chance to say that you had nobody to
go with but the likes av me. If I was to let you walk home with me
to-night, yuh might be askin' to call next week. Inside half a
year, if yuh was lonesome enough, yuh'd ask me to marry yuh. And
b'gorra," she said softly, looking down at her unlovely red hands,
"I'm dead scared I'd do it. Get back to work, Ted Terrill, and
hold yer head up high, and when yuh say your prayers to-night,
thank your lucky stars I ain't a hussy."



III