At the corner Mr. Fogg was standing in the door of his little shop, holding a blue bottle up to the light and examining it with critical care. He had on his usual clothes of many colors, shabby from much wearing, but in his round, clean-shaven face, pink with health and inward cheer, was smiling serenity, and in his eyes a twinkle that yielded not to time or circumstance. His second-hand bookshelf, his canary-birds and white rabbits, his fox-terriers and goldfish are friends that never fail, and in them he has found content. His eagerness to chat occasionally with some one who cares, as he cares, for his beloved books, is not at times to be resisted, but I was in no mood to talk to-day. I wondered if I could hurry by. "Good morning!" The blue bottle, half filled with water, in which a tiny bulb was floating, was waved toward me, and a shaggy white head nodded at me. "It's a fine day, ain't it?--a fine day for snow. Good and gray. I think we'll have some flakes before night. Kinder feel like a boy again when it's snowing. I don't know yet which season I like best. Every one has got its glory. What you been up to to-day? Seeing some more things?" I nodded. "I wish I could come in, but I can't." I shivered, though I was not cold. "I am going up-town." A minute before I had no intention of going up-town, but to go indoors was suddenly impossible. Whatever was possessing me must be fought off alone. "I will bring you my copy of Men and Nations to-morrow. Keep it as long as you wish." "Thank you, ma'am. Thank you hearty. I'll take good care of it. I suppose you haven't heard of the widow Robb? Her name's Patty, you know, and she's got a beau. He's named Cake. Luck plays tricks with love, don't it? Don't get caught in a snow-storm. You ain't"--his voice was anxious--"you ain't thinking of leaving us, are you? The girls down here are needing of you, needing sore. All of us are needing of you." I shook my head. "Of course I'm not thinking of leaving you." I waved my hand in response to his wave of the bottle, and, not seeing where I went, I turned the corner and, head bent to keep out of my face the tiny particles of sleet and snow beginning to fall, walked for some distance before noticing where I was. Much of my city, unknown to me a short while ago, was now familiar, but to much I was still a stranger, and presently I was wondering concerning the occupants of the houses I was passing. The shabby gentility and dull respectability of the latter was depressing, and to escape the radiation of their dreariness I turned into first one street and then another, and as I walked the girl with the boyish face walked with me, the face with its hunted fear. She had held the baby as if frightened, and when she turned the corner she was running. She was so young. Could the baby be hers? It must be hers. Nothing but a mother-face could have in it what hers had. Why was she afraid, and of what?