“Surely, if you want me to.”

“Then you’d better begin a new story, because I’m more’n half-way through this one.”

“I’ll begin right where you left off, Mother.  It doesn’t make a particle of difference to me.”

“But you won’t get the sense of it.  I’d like for you to enjoy it while you’re readin’.”

“Don’t worry about my enjoying it—­you know I’ve always been fond of books.  If there’s anything I don’t understand, I can ask you.”

“All right.  Begin right here in True Gold, or Pretty Crystal’s Love.  This is the place:  ’With a terrible scream, Crystal sprang toward the fire escape, carrying her mother and her little sister in her arms.’”

[Sidenote:  Two Sighs]

For nearly two hours, Roger read, in a deep, mellow voice, of the adventures of poor, persecuted Crystal, who was only sixteen, and engaged to a floor-walker in ’one of the great city’s finest emporiums of trade.’  He and his mother both sighed when he came to the end of the installment, but for vastly different reasons.

“Ain’t it lovely, Roger?”

“It’s what you might call ‘different,’” he temporised, with a smile.

“Just think of that poor little thing havin’ her house set afire by a rival suitor just after she had paid off the mortgage by savin’ out of her week’s wages!  Do you suppose he will ever win her?”

“I shouldn’t think it likely.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but the endin’ of those stories is always what you wouldn’t expect.  It’s what makes ’em so interestin’ and, as you say, ‘different.’”

Roger did not answer.  He merely yawned and tapped impatiently on the table with his fingers.

[Sidenote:  Nine o’Clock]

“What time is it?” she asked, adjusting her spectacles carefully upon the ever-useful and unfailing wart.

“A little after nine.”

“Sakes alive!  It’s time I was abed.  I’ve got to get up early in the mornin’ and set my bread.  Good-night.”

“Good-night, Mother.”

“Don’t set up long.  Oil is terrible high.”

“All right, Mother.”

Miss Mattie went upstairs and closed her door with a resounding bang.  Roger heard her strike a match on a bit of sandpaper tacked on the wall near the match-safe, and close the green blinds that served the purpose of the more modern window-shades.  Soon, a deep, regular sound suggestive of comfortable slumber echoed and re-echoed overhead.  Then, and then only, he dared to go out.

[Sidenote:  A Light in the Window]

He sat on the narrow front porch for a few minutes, deeply breathing the cool air and enjoying the beauty of the night.  Across the way, the little grey house seemed lonely and forlorn.  The upper windows were dark, but downstairs Barbara’s lamp still shone.

“Sewing, probably,” mused Roger.  “Poor little thing.”

As he watched, the lamp was put out.  Then a white shadow moved painfully toward the window, bent, and struck a match.  Star-like, Barbara’s signal-light flamed out into the gloom, with its eager message.