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No 19 McDougle Street had been chosen as a likely market by a "hokey-pokey" man, who had wheeled his cart to the curb before the entrance There, despite Mrs Hastings' coach-man's peremptory appeal, he continued to dispense stained ice-cream to the little denizens of No 19 and the other houses in the row The brougham, however, at once proved a counter-attraction and ie step and exchanged penetrating cos, you and Miss Holland would better sit here, perhaps," suggested St George, alighting hurriedly, "until I see if this man is to be found"

"Please," said Miss Holland, "I've always been longing to go into one of these houses, and now I' Aren't we, Aunt Dora?"

"If you think--" ventured Mr Frothinghaham's perplexity always impressed one as duty-born rather than judicious, and Miss Holland had already risen

"Olivia!" protested Mrs Hastings faintly, accepting St George's hand, "do look at those children's aprons I' this far"

Unkee accosted them and asked the way to the roo their wonderful teeth, consulted together, and finally with s of shapely hands they indicated the door of the "first floor front," whose wooden shutters were closely barred St George led the way and entered the bare, unclean passage where discordant voices and the odours of cooking wrought together to poison the air He tapped sraceful boy, dressed in a long, belted coat of dun-colour He had straight black hair, and eyes which one saw before one saw his face, and he gravely bowed to each of the party in turn before answering St George's question

"Assuredly," said the youth in perfect English, "enter"

They found the the full depth of the house; and partly because the light was dim and partly in sheer amazement they involuntarily paused as the door clicked behind thehbourhood was cos laid one upon another so that footfalls were silenced The walls and ceiling were smoothly covered with a neutral-tinted silk, patterned in dihtness an enormous candelabrum shed clear radiance upon the objects in the rooht reed, h fantastic backs, in perfect purity of line however, and laid hite mattresses A little reed table showed slender pipes above its surface and these, at a touch froht tiny columns of water that tinkled back to the square of rasses automatically swayed from above On a side-table were decanters and cups and platters of a material frail and transparent Before the shutteredstood an observable plant with coloured leaves On a great table in the room's centre were scattered objects which confused the eye A light curtain stirring in the fan's faint breeze hung at the far end of the room