aren't well. Such soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but
what I think these other things are all right. As you say, they
may--interest her. But they aren't things she can use just now, and
wouldn't you like her to have some of those soft lovely things she
could actually wear? They might help most of all. To wake in the
morning and find herself in something so beautiful--"

"Where do you get 'em?" he demanded promptly.

And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the
others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie
selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out
that afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely _robe de
nuit_--so soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed
that surely it might help bring release from the bondage of those
crushing years.

As they were leaving they were given two packages. "Just the kimona
thing you liked," he said, "and a trinket or two. Now that we're
such good friends, you won't feel like you did this morning."

"And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother,"
Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke.

He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked
her; they had said good-bye and the _cocher_ had cracked his whip
when he came running after her. "Why, Young Lady," he called out,
"we don't know each other's _names_."

She laughed and gave hers. "Mine's William P. Johnson," he said.