“No, no! no telling how long we’d have been kept waiting, or how many customers would have stumbled over or against it, or caught their dresses on it in the mean time. Whew! how close this room is! The girls rush down without waiting to open a window,” hastily throwing up one as she spoke. “I’m sorry I’ve no better or lower accommodations to offer you, Miss Kemper,” she went on laughingly. “It’s a shame to make you climb so many stairs, but one of the things that can’t be helped. That’s your bed in the corner there,” pointing to a single bed which seemed not to have been occupied. “Do lie down and rest a little; sleep if you can. I must run right away,” and she flew downstairs. Floy glanced about her. A great bare attic room, an old carpet, faded and worn, covering the middle of the floor; furniture scanty--just an old bureau, three chairs, all much hacked and scratched with long, hard usage; several unmade beds, each of which had evidently been occupied by two persons through the past night; and her own little one, which looked neat and inviting with its coarse but clean sheets and cheap white counterpane. Everything indeed was clean, yet the room was disorderly and without a suggestion of comfort or prettiness in its appointments. What a contrast to her own cosey, tasteful room in the old home! She walked to the window and looked out. Day had fully dawned, and the busy hum of the awakening city came to her ear with no unpleasing sound. No velvety lawn, no garden gay with flowers, no nodding trees or softly wooded hills met her view; instead, bare roofs and domes and spires; but beyond these lay the great lake, its waters rippling in the morning breeze. And even as she gazed, far away to the east where sea and sky seemed to meet, a long line of rose color showed itself, deepened rapidly to crimson, brightened into gold; rays of light shot upward, quickly followed by the sun, “rejoicing as a strong man to run a race,” and sending his bright beams over the wide expanse of waters till each wavelet’s edge was tipped with burnished gold. Floy leaned against the window-frame, hands clasped and eyes drinking in eagerly all the glory and beauty of the scene, loneliness, bereavement, all earthly ills forgotten for the moment. “Ah,” she sighed half aloud, “if Espy were here! if he could but transfer this to canvas!” Then all the grief and anguish of their estrangement, all the sorrow and loss that preceded and mingled with it, came rushing back upon her with well-nigh overwhelming force, and her slight, willowy form bent like a reed before the blast. She sank upon her knees, her head resting upon the window-seat, her hands tightly clasped above an almost breaking heart.