Morgana paused in the act of pouring out a second cup of coffee, and
her face dimpled with amusement.

"Buy me a man!" she echoed--"You think it would?"

"Of course it would!" Manella averred--"If you wanted one, which I
daresay you don't. For all I know, you may be like the man who is
living in the consumption hut on the hill,--he ought to have a
woman, but he doesn't want one."

Morgana buttered her little breakfast roll very delicately.

"The man who lives in the consumption hut on the hill!" she
repeated, slowly, and with a smile--"What man is that?"

"I don't know--" and Manella's large dark eyes filled with a
strangely wistful perplexity. "He is a stranger--and he's not ill at
all. He is big and strong and healthy. But he has chosen to live in
the 'house of the dying,' as it is sometimes called--where people
from the Plaza go when there's no more hope for them. He likes to be
quite alone--he thinks and writes all day. I take him milk and
bread,--it is all he orders from the Plaza. I would be his woman. I
would work for him from morning till night. But he will not have
me."

Morgana raised her eyes, glittering with the "fey" light in them
that often bewildered and rather scared her friends.

"You would be his woman? You are in love with him?" she said.