Lotte, with hot tears and shuddering, stifled sobs mured Emma.-Page 578.

ities; whether her pillow lay submerged by Daddy Schanz's proof-sheets, or on a chair in Widow Dugenhubel's room, flooded by that dame's ceaseless oratory; whether whistled to, laughed at, pinched, and stealthily caressed by Nick-Nack, or whether the object of Lotte's sensible care and devotion, Emma accepted irregularities and homages alike, with a lofty indifference and mild remoteness which seemed a veritable triumph of mind over matter.

None of the gentlemen and ladies of the mansard had had opportunity and leisure to meditate upon occult lore, or they might have surmised the soul of Seneca or Marcus Aurelius had deigned to reincarnate in wee Emma Rupp. Lotte, unoccult, but no fool, merely remarked: "She's a wise one, Emma-le! Looks as if she just knew."

The baby-stoic's eyes were in truth knowing-large, long, deep set, of the blue that merges into gray, and so startlingly intelli

knelt before it and mur

gent that the dwellers in the mansard were of the unanimous opinion she privately reflected upon all that happened in her presence, and were inclined to lower their voices when discussing secrets and intimate family matters. At this period of her career she seemed to be chiefly composed of a scrap of old shawl, and eyes that tock your measure. "She listens to every word I say," Widow Dugenhubel protested. this was the case, it testifies to more intrepid politeness on Emma's part than could be alleged of any other human

creature.

If

Baby Emma continued to manifest her high stoicism-except when she vibrated to lush Epicureanism as above indicated-and at the age of two years was still tiny, frail, never ill, and the gracious recipient of the bounty of the mansard, where changes now and then took place

Leni and Mina being succeeded by Betti and Netti, and they by others like unto them. Hair, eyes, and names differed, but rarely the cruel drudgery of the day's work, or the fierce and frantic frivolousness of the reaction in free hours. Widow Dugenhubel had moved on, to exercise her tongue-let us for her sake hope, for talking was what she loved best on earth-in another and a better world. But all new-comers vied with old residents in paying court to the child.

When Nick-Nack, who had princely tastes, asked her what he should bring her from a fair or merry-making, she invariably responded "Something good to eat," and usually specified prunes, dates, or sweets. Nick-Nack, like most

of his colleagues, was a youth of brilliant expectations. Chimney sweeping is a lucrative as well as gallant profession, but has an awkward effect upon the respiratory organs of the ambitious young gentlemen who follow it, and is apt to instigate a break-neck race between competence and consumption, the chances strongly in favor of the latter.

In Lotte's evenings at home she made smart frocks for Emma-le, and was a happy woman. Her prospects looked peaceful and assured. She had for many years earned well, if at an enormous expenditure of her good strength, had a fair amount in the savings-bank, and would have had more were she not helpful to relatives - even to such as had turned a cold, but strictly moral, shoulder upon her in the days when she was young and forsaken. Now she was zealously working for Emma-le, continu

She dreaded no interference on the part of Frau Rupp, of whose Swiss experiences few rumors had reached the mansard. One incoherent letter had come indeed, inquiring for certain missing objects, among which Emma was not included; but the mother added she might send for the child some day, when she was quite settled. Lotte was profoundly sceptical in regard to any finite completion of the settling process. Then a pedler who had returned from Zürich-who met a man who knew the apple-woman on the corner, who chatted with Frau Rupp's teamster-cousin, who stopped to gossip with Nick-Nack, striding along with ladder and black

"Nothing will stop her short of the final thump," she reflected. "So much the worse for her; so much the better for us;" hugging Emma-le closer and weighing the comparative merits of millinery and art embroidery.

"It is pretty work, ribbons and flowers, and paying-for such as has the knack in their fingers. Mà-le has. But that big embroidery is great. If you have a talent for drawing-Mà-le has-you can work in all you see-a bunch of horsechestnuts or even sunflowers. Anyhow she shall never scour and scrub. Such wrists and ankles! A little, tiny mite of a wee bit, fine lady! She shall learn to sing if she likes, so there now!" This with defiant mien toward future warnings of worldly prudence- her own or another's.

She must make her will, too, and take legal steps to adopt Mà-le. Then she could be christened-Protestant of course. Here Lotte frowned and decided there was no need of haste. For baptism involved some queer complications, and she had the invincible repugnance of the respectable working-woman toward lawyers. If you so much as spoke to one of them you could find yourself in a disgraceful law court before you knew it! No, there was time enough for all that. So Lotte, secure, dreamed loving and ambitious dreams while the frail child slept in her arms.

On the morrow a boy spied Lotte balancing herself at the top of a high ladder and dusting some carved woodwork in the ceiling of one of his father's palatial rooms. He thought it would be fun to shake her a bit. He was fond of what he called chaff, and merely meant to frighten her. He succeeded. She was taken unconscious to à hospital.

Not all the sweets that Nick-Nack brought could quite console Mà-le for Lotte's absence. The child ate them seriously, never declined any kindness, attention, or adulation, yet for weeks glanced

It seemed probable that she would wait long. The nice little chaffing boy had played a very thorough-going prank. Nick-Nack went on Sundays to the hospital, when he wore fine black clothes, polished boots and gaiters, a silk hat, and moved with a certain light elegance which may be acquired in chimneys. At first he took Mà-le with him. She behaved with her wonted weary gentleness, as if hospitals, doctors, and nurses were familiar trifles, but lavished upon Lotte faint baby touches of deep and still affection which subtly implied the sacredness of reminiscence and the strength of old association.

Nick-Nack went one Sunday alone. Then he went no more. The prank was consummated.

In the mansard a council was held, at which Nick-Nack, sitting on the table with Mà-le, presided. After floundering about for awhile in helpless irrelevance, the assembly, under Nick-Nack's guidance, pulled itself sufficiently into shape to vote unanimously Mà-le must on no account leave the garret. Those least concerned, Widow Dugenhubel's successor, and Nanni and Fanny, the new factory girls, voted loudest.

Now Mà-le, from the garret point of view, had been looked upon as a quasi heiress. But as poor Lotte had merely contemplated those dreaded legal steps, all her savings fell with ironical promptitude to her kindred who had cast her off when she was in trouble. Some of these points Nick-Nack accentuated in his able speech, and little Mà-le at his side seemed like a dethroned queen-grave, reserved, and sucking barley-sugar.

Daddy Schanz, with unwonted acuteness, remarked that life was uncertain and such things did happen. Nanni and Fanny declared they would think themselves awfully lucky if they ever got as near as that to a fortune. Widow Dugenhubel's successor was good enough to regale the company with a convoluted narration of various episodes which, in her

opinion, bore upon the subject under dis cussion. Granny Schanz murmured, in her timid, deprecating voice, that she had not even considered the possibility of relinquishing her care of Mà-le. Nick Nack laughed, and said he would pay for her milk and toggery. The cheerful little dressmaker, who had moved with a crippled husband and some young children into Lotte's room, stated that it would be no trouble at all for her to do any little job the child needed.

So the mansard possessed Mà-le and Mà-le possessed the mansard, and was regarded anew as a favorite of fortune, for was not Nick-Nack, her special patron, a man of independent means? Not even the morality of a garret can resist the prestige of reiterated prospective inheritances. Alone with him she would

often ask when Lotte was coming back, and look at him with searching eyes that seemed to penetrate his paltry inventions. Meanwhile nothing was heard from Frau Rupp

Mà-le speedily assumed mental control of the worthy Schanz couple. It was the inevitable result of her intellectual superiority and quiet force of character. The children of garrets are necessarily far cleverer in practical ways than the children of luxury. But even for a garretchild Mà-le was singularly clear-headed, observant, and deft of hand. A dozen times a day she would silently foresee and prevent the loss of Daddy Schanz's spectacles, the search for which had been hitherto a frequent and time-consuming rite. She knew where things were and where they ought to be, and instinctively

harmonized these mostly conflicting conditions. Things, indeed, never embarrassed or intimidated her; she commanded them; whereas they had overawed and perplexed Granny Schanz all her life. Hence the child's easy supremacy. The Schanz ménage gained in perspicuity from the day Mà-le took it under her wing. She presided over Daddy Schanz's proofsheets, and invoked order among those distraught waves. It is probable that she also meditated making the queer little marks in the margin, for she was watching his work continually with her shrewd, deliberate gaze. But about this time he became too silly even to read proof, and was conveyed to a place where he, with other harmless and helpless old men, en

joyed, it is to be hoped, protection even better than little Mà-le's.

For financial considerations Granny Schanz now moved into a smaller room in another garret. Its doors and passages bewildered her sadly, and Mà-le piloted her. Nick-Nack moved also. În the In hours when he was not dangling between earth and sky, it mattered little to him where his tent was pitched, provided he was near Mà-le, who, for her part, delighted in him and all his phases, black and white.

In the new garret lived a childless widow named Käthe, who stitched clothing for men employed on the railway, and was therefore greatly respected by her neighbors. A Government appointment