The Candy Man was out and at her side in an instant, assisting her to rise.  The panic swept past them, leaving only a long-legged child in a red tam, and a sad-faced elderly man in its wake.  The Candy Man had seen all three before.  The wearer of the red tam was one of the apartment-house children, the sad man was popularly known to the neighbourhood as the Miser, and the girl, to whose assistance he had sprung—­well, he had seen her on two previous occasions.

As she stood in some bewilderment looking ruefully at the mud on her gloves and skirt, the merest glance showed her to be the sort of girl any one might have been glad to help.

“Thank you, I am not hurt—­only rather shaken,” she said in answer to the Candy Man.

“Here’s your bag,” announced the long-legged child, fishing it out of the soggy mass of leaves beneath the wagon.  “And you need not worry about your skirt.  Take it to Bauer’s just round the corner; they’ll clean it,” she added.

The owner of the bag received it and the accompanying advice with an adorable smile in which there was merriment as well as appreciation.  The Miser plucked the Candy Man by the sleeve and asked if the young lady did not wish a cab.

She answered for herself.  “Thank you, no; I am quite all right—­only muddy.  But was it a bad accident?  What happened?”

The Miser crossed the street where the crowd had gathered, to investigate, and returning reported the chauffeur probably done for.  While he was gone the conductor of the street car appeared in quest of the names and addresses of everybody within a radius of ten blocks.  In this way the Candy Man learned that her name was Bentley.  She gave it reluctantly, as persons do on such occasions, and he failed to catch her street and number.

“I’m very sorry!  I suppose there is nothing one can do?” she exclaimed, apropos of the chauffeur, and the next the Candy Man knew she was walking away in the mist hand in hand with the long-legged child.

“An unusually charming face,” the Miser remarked, raising his umbrella.

To the sober mind “unusually charming” would seem a not unworthy compliment, but the Candy Man, as he resumed his place in the wagon, smiled scornfully at what he was pleased to consider its grotesque inadequacy.  If he had anything better to offer, the Miser did not stay to hear it, but with a courteous “good evening” disappeared in his turn in the mist.  An ambulance carried away the injured man, the crowd dispersed; the remains of the machine were towed away to a near-by garage.  Night fell; the throng grew less, the rain gathered courage and became a downpour.  There would be little doing in the way of business to-night.

As he made ready for early closing the Candy Man fell to thinking of the girl whose name was Bentley.  Not that the name interested him save as a means of further identification.  It was a phrase used by the Reporter this morning that occurred to him now as peculiarly applicable to her.  The Girl of All Others!  He rolled it as a sweet morsel under his tongue, undisturbed by the reflection that such descriptive titles are at present overworked—­in dreams one has no need to be original.