An old man, walking slowly but with a soldierly bearing, came to where Kathleen sat. He greeted her quietly, responded silently to her introduction of Applebaum and Hertha, and, taking the fourth place at the table, applied himself assiduously to his dinner. Hertha welcomed his advent as relieving her of Kathleen's labor talk. He sat at her right, and she noted his thin, aristocratic face, his high forehead and long straight nose, his clear blue eyes and soft white hair. She thought him the handsomest old gentleman she had ever seen--a little like old Mr. Merryvale but with more of wisdom and worldliness. There was little talk for a time, only Applebaum occasionally making pleasant if unilluminating remarks on the day's happenings; but with the coming of dessert and coffee Kathleen took command of the conversation and resumed her charge. The Irishwoman, true to her race, was always ready for a fight and could never see when she was beaten. "We were talking of factories and unions before you came in," she said turning to the Major. "Miss Ogilvie here went out on strike not long since, the 'Imperial' shop. She led the girls out----" "I did not," Hertha interrupted. She was angry that Kathleen should represent her as doing anything so aggressive. "Well, you helped to, I'm proud to say. But I was telling them how I worked in the mill when I was a kid. I was starting on the story of my first strike, and I leading it, when the sight of you put it out of my head." "Tell it to us all now, Kitty," the Major said. It was a pleasant time to hear a story. The room was quiet, for most of the diners had left. Madame sat at the desk in the corner counting her receipts, while a couple of elderly men in the middle of the room played at dominoes. There was an air of homelikeness about the place. Major Hayes and William Applebaum, lighting their cigars, leaned back in their chairs to listen, while Hertha sipped her coffee that she knew she should not drink, and looked with apprehension, but with admiration also, into Kathleen's face. What wonderful gray eyes this Irishwoman had, and how whole-heartedly she flung herself into whatever she had to say! She was like a bright beam of sunlight falling suddenly into a dull room; or, again, like a flash of lightning that carried with it an ominous rumble of thunder. The world would be a wonderful, sublimely happy place when it let the sunlight triumph in lives like Kathleen's.