The matron closed the door and returned to her office. For nearly an hour she sat, idle, at her desk. It was the first of the month; there were statements to be prepared, reports to be rendered, bills to be checked. But it was patent that her mind was upon none of these things. From time to time she glanced up impatiently at some noise in the hallway. Presently there came the sound of hurrying footsteps. She whirled her chair about. Selina Jo stood in the doorway. Questions, answers, were unnecessary. The flush in her cheeks, the flame in her sloe-black eyes, blazoned her happiness to the world. As she realized what the superintendent’s decision had been, an answering light gleamed, momentarily, in Mary Shane’s face. Characteristically, though, it was quenched upon the instant, as she slipped once more, automatically, into her habitual mask of granite. But even a granite mask--since it is only a mask--cannot stifle a heart song; at best, it can only muffle it. For as she went about the prosaic business of acquainting Selina Jo with her duties, Mary Shane was well aware that, somewhere, deep within herself, a small voice was chanting, chanting over and over: “For this one--just this one, Lord--who comes of her own accord to be changed, for this single one who wants to be made different, I thank Thee!” A FRIEND OF NAPOLEON BY RICHARD CONNELL From _Saturday Evening Post_ All Paris held no happier man than Papa Chibou. He loved his work--that was why. Other men might say--did say, in fact--that for no amount of money would they take his job; no, not for ten thousand francs for a single night. It would turn their hair white and give them permanent goose flesh, they averred. On such men Papa Chibou smiled with pity. What stomach had such zestless ones for adventure? What did they know of romance? Every night of his life Papa Chibou walked with adventure and held the hand of romance. Every night he conversed intimately with Napoleon; with Marat and his fellow revolutionists; with Carpentier and Cæsar; with Victor Hugo and Lloyd George; with Foch and with Bigarre, the Apache murderer whose unfortunate penchant for making ladies into curry led him to the guillotine; with Louis XVI and with Madame Lablanche, who poisoned eleven husbands and was working to make it an even dozen when the police deterred her; with Marie Antoinette and with sundry early Christian martyrs who lived in sweet resignation in electric-lighted catacombs under the sidewalk of the Boulevard des Capucines in the very heart of Paris. They were all his friends and he had a word and a joke for each of them, as on his nightly rounds he washed their faces and dusted out their ears, for Papa Chibou was night watchman at the Musée Pratoucy--“The World in Wax. Admission, one franc. Children and soldiers, half price. Nervous ladies enter the Chamber of Horrors at their own risk. One is prayed not to touch the wax figures or to permit dogs to circulate in the establishment.”