"I'm sure there is no deception in this case, mama." "Well, have it your own way, child; but pray don't take off his coat to investigate, or you'll be catching some dreadful disease. It does seem strange that poor people should always be so odiously dirty, when water costs nothing." "This man is as clean as possible, and so is the baby. Her name is Fleur-de-lis; is it not quaint?" "Just what I should expect; the dirtier and commoner they are, the more regal and fanciful are the names they give their children. I suppose your Fleur-de-lis is redolent of garlic, like the Pansies and Violets of her class." "No, she is not. She is as sweet as a rose; but her face is almost blue with cold." "Of course; what can the man expect if he trundles her about in this weather? But I suppose he does it to enlist public sympathy. I wonder why foreigners choose this particularly obnoxious way of getting a living; and, if they must do it, why they go about with a decrepit old instrument like that." [Illustration] "Yes, his piano is very old, but he cannot afford to rent a better one just at present. He said, in his broken English, 'I had not the "Marche Boulanger," neither "Comrades," ma'mselle; it was then I had what you call bad luck, and now, _mon Dieu!_ it is that I have not "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay."' And, as for the child, he does not allow her to take the money. I was dropping the quarter into her hand, when he touched his cap, and said, '_Pardon_, give it to me, ma'mselle, _s'il vous plaît_. You see, if ze monees keep putting in her hand she will grow up one leetle beggair; she does not make ze muzeek, she does not push ze piano--_bien_, she s'all not take zee monees." "Extraordinary!" murmured Mrs. Gordon satirically, as she fitted the cushions to her back more luxuriously; "you must repeat that speech to your father. I actually believe that a new order of philosophic mendicant is springing up to match the new charity. The new charity does not wish to pauperise poverty, and the new poverty does not wish to be pauperised; it is really very amusing." "He is forced to take the child with him, because she has no mother," explained Janet. "Of course she has no mother; they make it a point to have no mother, or, if they have, they say they never knew who she was nor where she is." "They know where this mother is," said Janet gravely, "for she died a year ago to-day." [Illustration]