The breath of a forgotten perfume and associations webby with age stir through the lethargy of years. Memories faded as flowers lift their heads. The frail scent of mignonette roused with the dust of letters half a century old, and eyes too dim and watery to show the glaze of tears turn backward fifty years upon the mignonette-bowered scene of love's young dream. A steel drawing-room car rolling through the clean and heavy stench of cow pasture, and a steady-eyed, white-haired capitalist, rolling on his rolling-stock, leans back against the upholstery and gazes with eyes tight closed upon a steady-eyed, brown-haired youngster herding in at eventide. The whiff of violets from a vender's tray, and a young man dreams above his ledger. The reek of a passing brewer's wagon, and white faces look after, suddenly famished. When the familiar pungency of her boarding-house flowed in and round Mrs. Violet Smith, she paused for a moment and could not push through the oppression. Then, with the associations of odor crowding in about her, she stripped herself of her gewgaws, as if here even the tarnished tinsel of pleasure could have no place, and tiptoed up the weary wind of three unlighted flights and through the thick staleness of unaired halls. At the third landing a broom and a dirty tangled debris of scrub-cloths lay on the topmost stair, as if an aching slavey had not found the strength to remove them. They caught the heel of her shoe, pitching her forward so that she fell sharply against her own door. In the gloom she paused for a palpitating moment, her hands pressing her breast, listening; then deposited her laden hat, the little pile of tinsel and the woolen bear on the floor outside the door. "Vi! Vi! That you, dear?" She pulled at her strength and opened the door suddenly, blowing in like a gale. "It's me, darlin'." She was suddenly radiant as morning, and a figure on the bed in the far corner of the dim-lit room raised to greet her with vague, white-sleeved arms outstretched. She flew to their haven. "Darlin', darlin', how you feeling?" "Vi, poor tired little girl!" "Harry, how you feeling, darlin'? They worked the force all night--first time ever. How you feeling, darlin'--how?" And she burrowed kisses on the poor, white face, and then deep into the tiny crib and back again into the vague white arms. "Oh, my babies, both of you! How you feeling, darlin'? So worried I've been. And the kid! Oh, God, darlin', I--I been so busy rightin' stock and all--all night they kept the force. I got such news, darlin'. We should worry that it's snowing! Such news, darlin'! The kid, Harry--did Mrs. Quigley bring her milk on time? How you feeling, darlin'! You 'ain't coughed, have you?"