eagerly responsive, as dogs are, to emotions along whose verges they tread with the soft feet of sympathy, the sweeter for the ignorance that paints their generosity in such tender colours. But Jessie was _bouleversée_ by this passionate, eager Cuckoo; this shadow on fire, who was alive almost ere London was alive, instead of half dead until half London slept. The shadow on fire snatched her out of her sleep, tossed her in air, spoke to her with a voice that thrilled her to quick barking excitement, played with her till the little dog's flux of emotions threatened to consummate in a canine apoplexy, and Mrs. Brigg battered at the door with a shrill, "Keep that beast quiet, can't yer?" All this was Cuckoo fighting; battle in the bedclothes, battle with soap and water, curling-pins, corset, shoes. Each little act was performed with an energy it did not demand. The sponge was squeezed dry like a live thing being strangled; the toothbrush played as Maxim guns on an enemy; buttons went into button-holes with a manner of ramrods going into muskets; hooks met eyes as one army meets another. Battle in all that morning's common tasks, setting them high, dressing them with chivalry and strong endeavour. Cuckoo went into her sitting-room swiftly, with glowing cheeks and flaming eyes, as one ardently expectant. And then--? Mrs. Brigg had lit the fire, but it had spluttered out into a mass of blackened, ghostly paper and skeleton sticks. A little more battle in the relighting of it. But then--the blank day of the girl of the streets. Cuckoo sat down, watched the growing fire, and wondered what she had expected. She was conscious that she had expected something, and something not small. Her mood had demanded it. But our moods are often like disappointed brigands, who, having waylaid a pauper, demand with levelled pistols that which the pauper has so vainly prayed for all his life. Moods come from within. They are not evoked to dance valses with suitable partners from without. And so Cuckoo's strong excitement and energy found nothing to dance with. She sat there growing gradually less alive, and wondering why she had hastened to get up; why she was fully dressed instead of wrapped in the usual staring pink dressing-gown with the chiffon cascades down the front. Mornings were of no use to her--never had been. God might as well never have included them in the scheme of His days, so far as she was concerned. But this morning she had thought, had felt--it seemed impossible that she should feel so unusual and that nothing should happen. She was ready, but Fate was in bed and asleep. That was really the gist of the feeling that came over her. She thought of Dr. Levillier, the man who had set a torch at last to her nature and fired it with a new ardour. He was at his work in the morning, seeing, speaking to, that passing line of strangers, who walked on forever through his life. His energies were employed. Perhaps he had forgotten Cuckoo and her empty mornings.