A new photograph of Alvary was displayed, and a small group had assembled about the window. The girl looked at it for a moment; then, as some one in the crowd jostled against her, she turned with an exclamation of annoyance and entered the shop. Hesitating an instant, she drew a worn purse from her pocket, looked into it, gave a decisive little shrug, and approached the counter. The shop-girl came up, and, recognizing her, nodded. "Music?" she inquired, glancing at the leather roll which the other carried. The girl shook her head slowly. "No," she replied, "I want a photograph of Alvary--as Lohengrin. Oh, the Swan Song--" A man who was sorting a pile of music in the rear of the shop came forward smiling. He was small and dark and foreign. "Ah, mademoiselle," he said, "it ees a plaisir for w'ich I live, ees ze Elsa of your." The girl smiled in return. In the clear light the glint of green in her eyes deepened. "No," she replied, "this is Elsa." She pointed to a photograph in the case. "This is the only Elsa. I should not dare." He bowed deprecatingly. "Zat ees ontil you come," he said. "I live for ze day w'en we sing togezzer, you an' I. I live to sing wiss you in ze grand opera." "Ah, monsieur," lamented the girl, regretfully, "one cannot live forever. The Lord has allotted a term." She took her change, nodded gayly, and departed. In the street she passed unheeded. She was as ignored by the crowd around her as the colorless shadow at her side. Upon a massive woman in a feather boa a dozen men gazed with evident desire, and after the sables enveloping the lady of quality the eyes of the boot-black yearned. But the girl moved among them unnoticed--she was insignificant and easily overlooked. A violet falling upon the pavement from the breast of a woman in front of her, the girl lifted her skirt, and, to avoid crushing it, made a slight divergence from her path. Then impulsively she turned to rescue it from the cold sidewalk, but in so doing she stumbled against a man whose heel had been its Juggernaut. A tiny blot of purple marked the scene of its destruction. Over the girl's face a shadow fell; she glanced up and caught the courteous smile of an acquaintance, and the shadow was lifted. But before her upward glance tended earthward it rested upon an overdriven horse standing in the gutter, and the shadow that returned had gathered to itself the force of a rain-cloud. An impressionable and emotional temperament cast its light and darkness upon her features, as the shifting clouds cast their varying shades upon an evening landscape. With such a face, her moods must be as evanescent as the colors of a kaleidoscope. As she neared an electric light she slipped the photograph she carried from its envelope, and surveyed it with warming eyes. She spoke in a soft whisper--