MARG'RITE.

IXTH AVENUE was thronged with a continuous, con

SIXTH

fusing stream of jerky hansoms, clattering delivery wagons and noisy automobiles, struggling and twisting among the supports of the elevated railroad and the clanging surface cars. The trains overhead with their mad, swift rushes added to the general confusion, and their great iron superstructures cast a disagreeable gloom on a scene a drizzling rain had already made sufficiently unpleasant. On the shining sidewalks bedraggled people hurried along, with pale, set faces that never smiled from morning until night, while at the busy corners some would break off from the neverending procession and make across the street in scurrying groups.

On one of these corners stood a young man, pausing until an opportunity was afforded to cross over. Even under the disconcerting circumstances of weather and confusion he was noticeable for the aristocratic set to his head and shoulders and his fashionable attire. He was tall and his close-fitting rain coat displayed an admirable figure, while his features, regular and purposeful, bore the unmistakable, hard-eyed, thin-lipped expression of the born and bred city man. was an excellent specimen of that type of New Yorker who, whatever his possibilities may be, has been stunted and warped by environment into a mere machine for dressing, entertaining and money-making.

He

There was but little real human feeling in the glance that swept the small crowd of shoppers just achieving his side of the street—no more interest than was roused by the chance of seeing a pretty face perhaps, yet the last figure to cross. caught his eye for a listless moment. It was a short, weazened little foreigner with a shabby black coat and black felt hat, who clutched a dilapidated umbrella in one hand and hugged convulsively to him a worn portfolio with the other. His eyes blinked frightenedly from behind a pair of steel

rimmed spectacles and his thin lips twitched nervously under the white mustache and beard. He was hurrying along with difficulty on account of a bad limp and had fallen behind the others. Just at this moment a delivery wagon turned the corner unexpectedly and there was a cry from the bystanders. As if by a miracle the old man escaped the horse, but a projection of the wagon caught him, tore the portfolio from his grasp and sent its contents in all directions. He, himself, was just saved from a dangerous fall by the quick arm of the young fellow who had been watching him. After a moment he found his feet and looked dumbly at the paintings and drawings scattered and mud-stained on the pavement. There was no thought in him of physical pain or danger, only a paralyzing mental agony as he beheld the ruin of his work there in the street. Several people stopped long enough to pick up a soiled picture and hand it to him, yet for the most part, the crowd swept by cold and heedless. The old man stood there trembling. There was no weeping, nor raving; the blow was too deep for that. In a thin, quavering voice he ejaculated, "Mein Gott! Mein Gott!" twice, and that was all. The infinite piteousness of the poor old professor standing grief-stricken before the work which meant God knows how much to him, touched the heart of Stephen Leslie, as it had probably never been touched before. He stooped and picked up a drawing which had fallen at his feet almost unharmed. With his hand on the old German's shoulder he asked: "How much will you take for this?"

A pained stare was the only response, and a word halfmumbled which sounded like "Marg'rite," "Marg'rite." As a small crowd of idlers had already gathered about them Leslie made a sudden decision and, to him, a strange one.

"Where do you live?" he asked, and with some difficulty he wormed a satisfactory reply from the distracted old man. Then forcing him gently along, having replaced a few drawings in the portfolio, he started toward the address. The hard light had gone from his eyes, and there was a new expression about his firm mouth.

Before the strange pair reached their destination Leslie had been many times tempted to regret his impulse, under the curious glances thrown toward them, and it was only his innate obstinacy that kept him to his task, and then, too, the memory of that piteous near-sighted stare. The houses became more and more dingy as they walked east, and changed from great stores and warehouses to tenements and saloons. Dirty children making dams in the gutters and playing their noisy games became more and more in evidence. The squalor of the dwellings and the odors of cheap markets and butcher-shops impressed their wretchedness on Leslie as they had never done before. At last the old man turned by instinct to the entrance of a filthy tenement house and Leslie noted that it was the number they sought. They pushed their way through a swarm of children at the door and on into the dark hall, where the aristocrat was quite surprised to find no elevator. They set themselves courageously to the narrow stairway however, and at every step and on every landing Leslie's delicate sensibilities met renewed outrages. At one place the old German had to stop to regain his strength, for the climb was difficult and his bruises from the wagon were beginning to make themselves felt. Leslie looked in an open door of a crowded room and saw a dozen or more Hebrews bent over their machines and needles, stitching, stitching, stitching, at an endless supply of garments in various stages of completion. Near-sighted lack-lustre eyes gazed stonily at the work, only lifting now and then to seek a new coat or to thread another needle. Frequent hacking coughs were the only sound save the whirring of the machines. And over all was the peculiar pervasive odor of the slums. A bent youth of twenty years or so suddenly looked up at him, focusing his eyes with wrinkled brows at the figure in the door. As he made out the young man with his shapely hat, beautifully fitting coat and neatly gloved hands, an expression came over his dull face which Leslie never forgot. It was not the bitter scowl of class hatred that had met him more than once that day, nor the

jeer of the boy of the street, nor yet the envious glance of the one who hated and yet would have imitated. It was the simple wondering face of the mere man who sees for the first time something of an unknown and beautiful world. Never in the life of this poor diseased Jew had such a splendid specimen of his own sex come before his eyes. Leslie shrank back half-ashamed from the young fellow's gaze and returned to his companion.

At length the pair reached the floor on which the German lived. Leslie had to well-nigh carry him up the last flight, and the old man sank down exhausted on his narrow bed as soon as they had entered his dingy little room, which was taken up for the most part by his easel and painting materials. The loss of his pictures was the one idea which possessed his brain and he talked to himself continually in his native tongue. The one word "Marg'rite," occurring again and again, was all that Leslie could distinguish. Finally he calmed the old gentleman enough to make him understand that he wished to purchase his pictures, and offered twenty-five dollars for the two half-ruined drawings. To his great surprise there was a visible hesitation in the old man's eyes, and that struggle with pride won Leslie to him entirely; finally the old man consented to accept it, and then in a voluble burst of words his whole story came out. There was an orphan grand-daughter, Marguerite, who was everything in the world to him, who was left in his care and whom he had resolved to bring up as a "ladty." She was being educated at a convent, and to support and educate her and at the same time live himself, he was painting, night and day. He had sold a series of drawings to a publisher, and was bringing the set himself when the accident occurred, and the year's work went for naught. Now for Marg'rite there would be no more school—and at this point he broke down entirely. Leslie divined the futility of a further offer of money, so after some questions as to the location of the convent, he left with such encouragement as he could give, for a better plan had formed in his brain.

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