A girl, some years older than herself, climbed the stairs one day, and asked for her--not by name, because few people knew her name at all. Patience met the intruder, and recognised in her a girl who lived in the rooms below--a sharp, bright, rather common girl--easy and good-natured, and knowing London perfectly; and Patience, seeing in her a new danger, confronted her and demanded her errand. "Well, I thought she might like to go out with me to-night," said the girl, a little aggressively. "I shan't do her no harm; I know my way about. I've got two tickets----" "No," said Patience in a low voice, as though she would keep the mere knowledge of the thing from the girl in the room behind her. "We keep ourselves to ourselves, thank you; there's nothing we want." "I don't know that I was talking to you," retorted the other, rather hotly. "It strikes me as rather hard if a girl can't say what she'd like to do or what she wouldn't. And if the opera isn't respectable, then I'd like to know what is?" Patience felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning a little guiltily, saw Moira standing beside her. She had caught that last word, and understood, curiously enough, what it meant; for Old Paul had spoken of it more than once. Old Paul had been lifted out of himself, it seemed, on occasions of heavy trouble, by this same wonderful opera; had felt his soul rising on wings of music far away from the earth and its troubles. This was Old Paul's business clearly, and Patience must stand aside. So much the girl demanded. "I think I will go," said Moira, smiling out at the other girl. "It's very kind of you." "Not a bit of it," retorted the other, with a laugh. "I only got these by chance; there's not many going, I can tell you. It's _Faust_, and a bit of a big night. There's somebody else"--the girl laughed confusedly, and turned away her head--"somebody else that generally takes me out; but he'd only fall asleep. Can't stand opera at any price. So I thought----" She put on the neatest that she had, and enjoyed the new luxury of a ride on the top of an omnibus. They came to a great building ablaze with lights; and by that time Moira was trembling to such an extent that the other girl, somewhat amused and amazed, put a friendly arm about the thin form to guide it up the stairs. Moira came to herself among a great press of people, with a great crowded building spreading far down below her, and a blank curtain, and the faint sound of music. Then she forgot everything, and looked and listened--and understood.