seeing again the public library in a new light through her eyes. “Some of the best minds have worked to give us just this.”

“How the book-ladies look so quiet like the things.”

“Yes,” he replied, with a tell-tale glance at her. “I too like to see a woman’s face above her clothes.”

The approach of the librarian cut off further comment. As Mr. Barnes filled out the application card, Shenah Pessah noted the librarian’s simple attire. “What means he a woman’s face above her clothes?” she wondered. And the first shadow of a doubt crossed her mind as to whether her dearly bought apparel was pleasing to his eyes. In the few brief words that passed between Mr. Barnes and the librarian, Shenah Pessah sensed that these two were of the same world and that she was different. Her first contact with him in a well-lighted room made her aware that “there were other things to the person besides the dress-up.” She had noticed their well-kept hands on the desk and she became aware that her own were calloused and rough. That is why she felt her dirty finger-nails curl in awkwardly to hide themselves as she held the pen to sign her name.

When they were out in the street again, he turned to her and said, “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to walk back. The night is so fine and I’ve been in the stuffy office all day.”

“I don’t mind”—the words echoed within her. If he only knew how above all else she wanted this walk.

“It was grand in there, but the electric lights are like so many eyes looking you over. In the street it is easier for me. The dark covers you up so good.”

He laughed, refreshed by her unconscious self-revelation.

“As long as you feel in your element let’s walk on to the pier.”

“Like for a holiday, it feels itself in me,” she bubbled, as he took her arm in crossing the street. “Now see I America for the first time!”

It was all so wonderful to Barnes that in the dirt and noise of the overcrowded ghetto, this erstwhile drudge could be transfigured into such a vibrant creature of joy. Even her clothes that had seemed so bold and garish awhile ago, were now inexplicably in keeping with the carnival spirit that he felt steal over him.

As they neared the pier, he reflected strangely upon the fact that out of the thousands of needy, immigrant girls whom he might have 

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