On their long walk across the city they said little. Their way led them past many familiar places, the school house, the old armory, Cemetery Street, Post-Office Square, where they used to sit and watch the electric signs. Of the objects they passed, Dan was superbly unaware. He saw only Nance. But she was keenly aware of every old association that bound them together. Everything seemed strangely beautiful to her, the glamorous shop-lights cutting through the violet gloom, the subtle messages of lighted windows, the passing faces of her fellow-men. In that gray world her soul burned like a brilliant flame lighting up everything around her. As they turned into Calvary Alley the windows of the cathedral glowed softly above them. "I never thought how pretty it was before!" said Nance, rapturously. "Say, Dan, do you know what 'Evol si dog' means?" "No; is it Latin?" She squeezed his arm between her two hands and laughed gleefully. "You're as bad as me," she said, "I'm not going to tell you; you got to go inside and find out for yourself." On the threshold of Number One they paused again. Even the almost deserted old tenement, blushing under a fresh coat of red paint, took on a hue of romance. "You wait 'til we get it fixed up," said Nance. "They're taking out all the partitions in the Smelts' flat, and making a big consulting room of it. And over here in Mr. Demry's room I'm going to have the baby clinic. I'm going to have boxes of growing flowers in every window; and storybooks and--" "Yes," cried Dan, fiercely, "you are going to be so taken up with all this that you won't need me; you'll forget about to-night!" But her look silenced him. "Dan," she said very earnestly, "I always have needed you, and I always will. I love you better than anything in the world, and I'm trying to prove it." A wavering light on the upper landing warned them that they might be overheard. A moment later some one demanded to know who was there. "Come down and see!" called Nance. Mrs. Snawdor, lamp in hand, cautiously descended. "Is that you, Nance?" she cried. "It's about time you was comin' to see to the movin' an' help tend to things. Who's that there with you?" "Don't you know?" "Well, if it ain't Dan Lewis!" And to Dan's great embarrassment the effusive lady enveloped him in a warm and unexpected embrace. She even held him at arm's length and commented upon his appearance with frank admiration. "I never seen any one improve so much an' yet go on favorin' theirselves." Nance declined to go up-stairs on the score of time, promising to come on the following Sunday and take entire charge of the moving. "Ain't it like her to go git mixed up in this here fool clinic business?" Mrs. Snawdor asked of Dan. "Just when she'd got a job with rich swells that would 'a' took her anywhere? Here she was for about ten years stewin' an' fumin' to git outen the alley, an' here she is comin' back again! She's tried about ever'thin' now, but gittin' married."