TWO SUNDAY AFTERNOONS 261 



broken grin, her shyness had vanished, she heard 

 herself called " Miss Byrne " with a thrill hardly 

 perceptible in the general affluence of dignity. Pres- 

 ently, in a manner not very clear to her, she and her 

 friends emerged from the pubhc-house; she leaned 

 on Devine's arm and laughed a great deal, while the 

 trams and the people in the street seemed pleasant, 

 impossible creatures, somewhat top heavy, but full of 

 genial intention. An outside car was standing at the 

 edge of the pavement; they all got up, she with a 

 festive shriek or two as her balance failed her ; Devine 

 sat beside her, and the little bay mare reached at her 

 bit, and swung her carload away out of the rattle of 

 the brown streets, out and out, by suburban terraces, 

 and roads over-arched by trees, doing her work in 

 singleness of heart, with keen and fleet stepping, 

 with generous outlay of her powers, with everything 

 that was a contrast to her vinous burden. 



Wlien Kate reached home her head was clear enough 

 to remember at least one important fact, that on the 

 following Sunday evening she would receive a visit 

 from no less a personage than Mrs. Nolan. 



II 



Mr. McKenzie sat in an armchair by the lace cur- 

 tains of his front parlour window, and looked out at 

 the stream of life that went by him in Lower Mount 

 Street. He was a small man, with pale eyes and a 

 sandy-grey beard, and his Northern accent declared 

 itself even in the clearing of his throat, as he sat, quiet 

 and solitary, with his new^spaper across his knee and 

 his hands folded upon it. Except for the grey tabby 

 kitten coiled on the sofa in decorous affectation of 

 sleep, he was the only hving creatiu*e in the tall and 



