room, yet with traces of refinement in its perfect cleanliness, its small stand of books, and the neat white cloth spread upon a small table, which held the evening meal, several slices of brown toast and a tiny pat of butter.

A little brown teapot was singing merrily on a small vapor stove, and Fair’s mother, a faded, melancholy-looking woman, who must once have[Pg 31] been very handsome, was waiting every moment for the return of her daughter from work.

[Pg 31]

She did not have long to wait, for at last a slow, lagging step, very unlike Fair’s usual merry bound, paused at the door, and Fair entered.

Mrs. Fielding glanced up, saw her daughter’s lovely face ghastly pale and grave, with a long, disfiguring strip of court-plaster across one temple, over which her curls drooped, wet and matted, and uttered a shriek of alarm and dismay.

“Mother!” cried Fair, with a loud, hysterical sob, and, springing to her mother’s arm, she hid her face on her neck and wept aloud in passionate excitement.

It was long before the anxious, frightened mother could elicit from Fair the story of what had happened to her, and then she sobbed for a while almost as wildly as her daughter over the peril she had escaped.

“Oh, my precious child, to think that at this moment you might be lying dead! It is horrible—horrible!” she cried. “Oh, I can never cease to thank the noble young man who saved your life at the imminent risk of his own. But, my dear, it seems strange that you did not think of[Pg 32] asking him to come in the house, that I, too, might have thanked him for his bravery,” she added, rather reproachfully.

[Pg 32]

“Oh, I did not like to ask, for—somehow—I fancied he was in a great hurry.”

“Too modest to wait and be praised and thanked for his bravery—that was natural,” said Mrs. Fielding. “But no matter; of course I shall go to him and express my gratitude. I declare, Fair, you haven’t told me his name!”

“I don’t know it, mamma.”

“Fair!”

Mrs. Fielding’s glance and tone were full of reproachful amazement. She drew a long, long breath, and added:

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