"Heaven forbid, Griselda," I interrupted her. "I won’t have that. There is enough inequality and heart-burning in the world without putting it among children. No, no. Buy the things where you bought the others—for Miss Laura’s children." Griselda laughed hoarsely. "You’ll not begin ruining the lassie with gaudy clothes!" she exclaimed. "No, Griselda, I’ll not. Good clothes have never yet ruined anybody," I gave her as my genuine conviction. "It’s the other way about. It’s poor clothes eat at the vitals of your self-respect like the fox in the tale of the Spartan lad." "Have ye gone into the bills for the clothes for the bairns?" she flung at me. "Not yet," I answered mildly. "But I’ll make a walking tour through them one of these days." "You’ll walk backwards when you do, I’m thinking," flung out Griselda, and disappeared, muttering. In Griselda’s lexicon extravagance is synonymous with crime and even outtops it. But she is certain to do as I ask. There was a book auction to-day. And two days having elapsed since my interview with Gertrude I was sufficiently myself, when I lay down the paper announcing it, to think of going. The news of an auction still has the effect upon me that a bugle might exert upon some battered, superannuated cavalry horse. Despite the rise of the plutocratic collector, despite the shoals of dealers who have made of book-buying almost an exact science, I still dream of encountering one day the fortune of Edward Malone, who, late in the eighteenth century, bought Shakespeare’s sonnets in the edition of 1609 and a first printing of the "Rape of Lucrece", all for two guineas. I had already conducted Jimmie to his kindergarten. On the way, as he nestled his hand more firmly in mine, he looked up at me with a humorous smile and informed me that "we men have won’erful times together." It gave me a curious thrill and I felt grateful even for this companionship in my solitary life which Gertrude and so many others find foolish and despicable. I was letting myself out at the front door when a plain, large-mouthed young woman of perhaps thirty, austerely garbed in black, stood facing me. I remained for a moment bereft of speech and then, of course, I foolishly apologized, I don’t know why—perhaps for encumbering the earth. "You wish to see Griselda?" I mumbled, with my hat in my hand. "No," she declared, scrutinizing me in the murky hallway. "I want to see Mr. Randolph Byrd." "I am he," I told her. "I should like to talk to you," she said in a low voice. Mentally I waved a sad farewell to the book auction and to any bargains it might hold and led the way to my study. "I am at your service," I told her, grinning, and all but offered her a cigarette. "It’s about the little girl, Alicia Palmer," she began hesitantly as though she had something dreadful to impart. "Are you her teacher?" I wonderingly asked. "No, Mr. Byrd, I am from the Home for Dependent Children—I am one of the inspectors."