In the boy who hastened away Eglah recognized the soloist of St. Hyacinth's, and noticed a bandage around his throat. When he came back with the parcel and counted the change into the palm of the saleswoman, Eglah touched his arm. "I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your voice." "Thank you, ma'am, I----" A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes. "I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?" "Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty fathers." "Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?" "Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ----, Fourteenth Street." At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the floor-walker. "If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you here, I shall buy elsewhere." His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store. "What a frail, beautiful boy, and what genuine golden hair! Looks as if it had been dipped in a pot of gilt. Dearie, don't you think it a shame these young children are chained up in stores when they ought to be romping and playing ball?" As their carriage turned from Twenty-third Street toward Broadway, that always crowded angle was even more than usually thronged, and during the brief pause Mr. Herriott came out of Maillard's with a box of bon-bons. "I am just going to the ferry to wait for you. Are you not too early, or has my watch gone astray?" "Come with us, Mr. Noel, we have ample room. Yes, it is early; but of course at the last minute I must needs shop on the way." As he seated himself in the carriage he handed a package to Eglah. "The latest Paris 'Revue,' and your favorite _marron glace_ and chocolate." "Thank you heartily, for both. I wonder if I ever shall cease to be a spoiled child--in your eyes?" "Whatever you may be in my eyes, you certainly will always remain." "How discouraging, that you should feel quite hopeless of any improvement in me. Driver, I wish to stop in West Fourteenth Street, at ----. Gloves, Mr. Noel, always gloves." "Will you bet a pair of best driving gauntlets that I cannot tell you exactly why you go there to-day?" "Certainly; silk-lined, fur-tipped gauntlets. I told you my errand was gloves; pray what other reason?" "You are going to get a glimpse of 'Juno.'"