Next morning an invitation reached Keith,—­he thought he knew through whose intervention,—­and he accepted it.

That evening, as Keith, about dusk, was going up the avenue on his way home, a young girl passed him, walking very briskly.  She paused for a moment just ahead of him to give some money to a poor woman who, doubled up on the pavement in a black shawl, was grinding out from a wheezy little organ a thin, dirge-like strain.

“Good evening.  I hope you feel better to-day,” Keith heard her say in a kind tone, though he lost all of the other’s reply except the “God bless you.”

She was simply dressed in a plain, dark walking-suit, and something about her quick, elastic step and slim, trim figure as she sailed along, looking neither to the right nor to the left, attracted his attention.  Her head was set on her shoulders in a way that gave her quite an air, and as she passed under a lamp the light showed the flash of a fine profile and an unusual face.  She carried a parcel in her hand that might have been a roll of music, and from the lateness of the hour Keith fancied her a shop-girl on her way home, or possibly a music-teacher.

Stirred by the glimpse of the refined face, and even more by the carriage of the little head under the dainty hat, Keith quickened his pace to obtain another glance at her.  He had almost overtaken her when she stopped in front of a well-lighted window of a music-store.  The light that fell on her face revealed to him a face of unusual beauty.  Something about her graceful pose as, with her dark brows slightly knitted, she bent forward and scanned intently the pieces of music within, awakened old associations in Keith’s mind, and sent him back to his boyhood at Elphinstone.  And under an impulse, which he could better justify to himself than to her, he did a very audacious and improper thing.  Taking off his hat, he spoke to her.  She had been so absorbed that for a moment she did not comprehend that it was she he was addressing.  Then, as it came to her that it was she to whom this stranger was speaking, she drew herself up and gave him a look of such withering scorn that Keith felt himself shrink.  Next second, with her head high in the air, she had turned without a word and sped up the street, leaving Keith feeling very cheap and subdued.

But that glance from dark eyes flashing with indignation had filled Keith with a sensation to which he had long been a stranger.  Something about the simple dress, the high-bred face with its fine scorn; something about the patrician air of mingled horror and contempt, had suddenly cleaved through the worldly crust that had been encasing him for some time, and reaching his better self, awakened an emotion that he had thought gone forever.  It was like a lightning-flash in the darkness.  He knew that she had entered his life.  His resolution was taken on the instant.  He would meet her, and if she were what she looked to be—­again Elphinstone and his youth swept