Why, when Helen lifted to her knee a child that tugged at the skirts of the stout German hausfrau in the next seat, the mother vouchsafed hardly a glance.
"How old are you?" asked Helen.
"Sechs yahre," was the shy answer.
"Such a big girl for six!"
"So grosse! So grosse!"
The little thing measured her height by touching her forehead.
"Shump down," admonished the mother stolidly, while Helen bent over the child, wasting upon her the most wonderful smile of the everlasting years.
"It was long ago, wasn't it," Nelly asked, when the child had slid from her lap, "that Uncle promised to take you into his office?"
"Yes," I said. "When Father died, the Judge told me that when I had practised three years—long enough to admit me to the New York bar—he'd have a place for me. It was because the three years were nearly up, you know, that I dared last June to ask you—"
"You'd dare anything," she interrupted hastily. "Remember how, when I was a Freshman, you raced a theologue down the church aisle one Sunday night after service, and slammed the door from the outside? 'Miss Winship,' you said—I had sat near the door and was already in the entry—'may I see you home?'—"