Stephen Glynn paid daily visits to the flat, and, in addition, escorted Pixie to various "sights" of the great city, in which, to tell the honest truth, she showed but little interest. Music was a passion with her, but of pictures she had no knowledge, and little appreciation. The antiques in the National Gallery left her cold and bored, though she was full of interest in what seemed to her companion the most uninteresting men and women who were employed in copying the canvases. When with the frankness of criticism which he had learned from herself he rallied her on this inconsistency, Pixie's answer was characteristic-- "One is dead, and the other's alive. The most uninteresting live person means more to me than a world of pictures. That girl in the grey dress had tears in her eyes. ... Did you see? She looks so poor. Perhaps she wants to sell her copy, and no one will buy! There was a man talking to the fat woman next to her as we passed through before. He was writing something in his pocket-book. I believe he was buying the picture, and the poor grey girl felt so sad.--If Esmeralda were here, I'd make her buy her copy, too." "It's a very _bad_ copy!" Stephen pronounced. Then he looked down at the girl, and the transforming smile lit up his face. "All the same-- would I do instead of `Esmeralda'? I'll buy it at once, if you wish it!" The grey eyes brightened, beamed, then clouded with uncertainty. "Really? Ought you? Are you sure? It may cost--" "That's my affair! Leave that to me. Would you like me to buy it?" "I would!" came back at once in the deepest tone of the eloquent Irish voice, and at that Stephen strode forward, his limp hardly observable on the wide, smooth floor, and came to a halt by the grey girl's side. Then followed what was to one spectator at least, a delightful scene. The surprise on the grey girl's face, the incredulity, the illimitable content, as the tall stranger made known his request, took out his pocket-book and handed her a card. Emotional Pixie had the softness of tears in her own eyes as Stephen rejoined her, and they walked away together down the long room. "Well," he said smiling, "on your head be it! Now she'll go on painting atrocities, and wasting good time, when she might be sweeping a floor! It's against my principles to encourage the desecration of art."