She was alone in a glass booth, with a telephone before her, receiver off its hook.  She sat down, put the receiver to her ear, and said: 

“Hello?”

[Illustration:  PLEASE DON’T TROUBLE, HUGO]

There reached her only a faint great buzzing, the humming of distant wires, fleeting snatches of talk a long way off, striking out of nowhere back into nothing....  And now she was the Lady Bountiful, stepping aside a moment from her brilliant entourage to scatter boons to the poor and needy.  Jack Dalhousie would know to-morrow morning, at the latest, by the telegram from his friend Mr. V.V.,—­as that little creature called him,—­and whatever vexation he might be inclined to feel towards her at first, his joy and his father’s would soon dispose of that.  And of course he would hurry straight off with his news to that girl from the East he had fallen in love with—­what a hand he was for affairs, poor old Jack!—­and....

Out of the confused murmuring, a soft voice spoke clearly: 

“Hello, New York.  I got your party.  What’s the matter?”

A nasal voice gave answer, apparently at Carlisle’s elbow: 

“Well, be ca’m, little one.  You people got the rush-bug worsen some full-size cities aintyer?  Butt out and gimme a chanst.  Hello!  W’ere arey’r, Bassadoors!”

“Here I am,” said Bassadoors.

“Miss Heth?”

“I am Miss Heth.”

“Minute ’m....”

In the glass beside her Cally caught a reflection of her head and bare shoulders, and her eyes were shining, the long and slightly tri-corner eyes so piquantly fringed.  A minute—­that was all it would take.  A minute more and she would thread her way back through the glitter to Hugo and mamma, and Hugo at least would say well-done....

“Well, whatsermatter?  There y’ are!”

The soft voice said:  “All right, Dr. Vivian.  Ready now!...  Hello!  All right....”

“Hello,” said Cally.

Then all sounds faded away, and out of a sudden great desert of silence, she heard a man’s voice, clear though it came all the way from Meeghan’s Grocery, across the street from the old Dabney House, back home.

“Hello?”

Mr. V.V.!

And the moment she heard that voice, Carlisle was aware that her feeling toward the owner of it had mysteriously changed somewhere in the last week, that he stood in her mind now almost as a friend.  Had he not been, by the strangeness of fate, her one confidant in the world, who now could never think of her again as a poor little thing?...

“Dr. Vivian?...  Can you guess who it is?  Or did the operator give me away?”

“Yes....  I don’t hear you very well....  Where are you?”

“I’m in New York, if you please, to sail for Europe next week!  We left home last night....  Is that better?”

“Yes....  That’s much better.”

Mr. V.V.’s voice, over the long miles of wire, sounded strained and hard; but the girl noticed nothing, being full of novel thrills.