“Eliza's a sweet,” Ellie pronounced. Anthony brooded without reply upon his opinion. The iron-like collar had capitulated, and rested limply upon his limp shirt; at the sacrifice of a second button his waistcoat offered complete comfort. “I am going to get a new dress suit,” he announced decisively. Ellie smiled with sisterly malice. “Eliza is a sweet,” she reiterated. “You go to thunder!” he retorted. But, “she's wonderful,” he admitted, and--out of his conclusive experience, “there is not another girl like her in all the world.” “I'll agitate for the new suit,” Ellie promised. X THE following morning he reorganized his neckties, left a pair of white flannels to be pressed at the tailor's; then, his shoulders swathed in a crisp, sprigged muslin, sat circumspectly under the brisk shears of Bert Woods. Bert hovered above him, and commented on yesterday's fiasco. “It comes to the best of 'em,” Bert assured him: “'member how Ollie Stitcher fell down in the world's series at Chicago.” He recited, for Anthony's comfort, the names of eminent pitchers who had “fell down” when every necessity demanded that they should have remained splendidly erect. His defeat still rankled in Anthony's mind, but the bitterness had vanished, the sting salved by that other memory of the impulsive charm of Eliza Dreen. He recalled all that she had said to him; her words, thoughtfully considered, were just those employed by humdrum individuals in their commonplace discourses; but, spoken by her, they were a thrill with an especial, a significant, importance and beauty. It was inevitable that she should have dreamed things immaculate, rare; things like... white flowers. “Shampoo?” Bert inquired absent-mindedly. “_And_ singed, and curled, and sprinkled with violets,” Anthony promptly returned. With a flourish, Bert swept aside the muslin folds. Then, in the pursuit of a neglected duty, he crossed the town to a quiet corner, occupied by a small dwelling built of smooth, green stone, crowned with a fantastic and dingy froth of wood. A shallow, untended garden was choked with weeds and bushes, sprawling upward against closely-shuttered windows. He had not been to see Mrs. Bosbyshell for two weeks, he realized, with a stir of mild self-reproach. He was aware that his visits to that solitary and eccentric old woman formed her sole contact with a world she regarded with an increasing, unbalanced suspicion. A minute or more after his knock--the bell handle was missing--a shutter shifted a fraction, upon which he was admitted to a narrow, dark hall, and the door bolted sharply behind him. A short, stout woman, in a formless wrap of grotesquely gorgeous design, faced him with a quivering, apprehensive countenance and prodigiously bright eyes. Her scant, yellowish-white hair was gathered aloft in a knot that slipped oddly from side to side; and, as she walked, shabby Juliet slippers loudly slapped the bare floor.