The Yale expositor., 1907-12-20

always greeted her with smiles, and
threw more money to her than the
others.
Not that the piano she followed
played any better than the rest, for
its strains were discordant, and the
old man who turned il was far from
thing of beauty.
But she, slight of stature, with a
roundness at bosom, and eyes big and
black, and hair that hung in long,
shiny braids from beneath little 'ker-
chief she wore, made one think of
Italy and sunny skies, and soft scent
ed fields far away.
Even her worn dress had a graceful
limpness about it, as it 1uttered with
she would keep time to the music
in the very poetry of motion, that was
all Italian, and the shabbiness about her
throat gave charming glimpses OF
creamy undulations, here and there
a tawdry jewel flashing against the
smooth skin.
At one of the big houses set back
in a large plot of green she always
fingered longest, not for the pennies
they threw, but because in the gay
party seated on the massive brown
stone steps there was one who smiled
more sweetly upon her than all the
rest.
He was wonderfully good looking in
her eyes, with a cleanness of face she
was not accustomed to see in men of
her race. and hair and eyes that re.
minded her of the pictures she saw
in the church where she went to say
her prayers.
When he would throw pennies at
her like so much sand from the street,
he would smile ever so sweetly, and
sometimes when she would come near
enough TO take them from him in
her own chubby brown hands, he
would call her Little Italy," and the
caressing cadence in his voice thrilled
her strangely.
Once he called her sweetheart;
she had never heard the word before,
and she did not know the meaning
of it, but it made her tremble very
much, and the color came and went
in her face. All that night and the
next day she pondered over the word,
but it was still strange to her.
She had no one to ask, for her ia
Their spoke only his own language
even if she had not felt a vague
shame to ask him-and among the
women in her street few knew more
English than she did herself.
At last one day she heard the word
from a woman who sat on the door.
step next to the house in which
she lived
With little cry of surprise, Rita
that was the name of the girl who fol-
lowed the Handicapped her work
damned close beside the one where
the woman sat holding her baby, and
stood over her.
What ees Eat you call re baby?"
she asked, looking down on the moth
er and child with flushed face and
eyes large and liquid.
What you mean? l Gala menny
names"
"Ah, but Eat one you just now zay,"
the girl interrupted with an impa-
tient gesture-"zat one what SCUM so
SORT and lofty, lik-a musick; gay it
some MORE" she coaxed
"Oh, you mean-a re word my hus-
ban gay, an l learn frum heem, an
Gala babee, like zees?" the woman
asked, repeating the word softly and
bending over her baby all the time.
"Ah, yes! Eat eez it," Rita was
radiant. But re meanin, what ees
re meanin'?" she asked stammer-
ingly.
"Oh, you want to know re meanin'
of Eat word?" the woman's dark eyes
glowed deeper, and she folded the
child to her breast. 81 tell-a you, il
meanin' like gees what l feel for my
baby" and there was rapture in her
voice.
only zat?" the girl asked, and her
| lips quivered little.
"Oh, zee!" the woman cried with the
quick intuitiveness of her race. Il zee
now, what il ees Eat Reeta want to
know; Reeta want to know eez 1t like
lover to gay Eat word, Eat what Reeta
want to know, amt it?" she queried,
showing two rows of white teeth.
Yes, Eat ees it," the girl allowed,
lowering her head to hide the increas.
ing bushes and swaying herself back
ward and forward in pretty bashful.
ness.
"Oh, Reeta ees got beau! Reeta ees
got beau!" The woman poked her fore
finger at the girl teasingly, giving vent
to her discovery by squeezing the
baby till IL cried feebly. "Oh, Reeta
ees got beau!" she repeated glee.
fully.
But suppose he ees reech, an lief
in beeg house all gran an lofly?''
Rita asked, without denying, and her
head was up now and the color had
died out of her face.
ooh, Eat make no difference" The
other woman shook her head i'm won
derful matronly wisdom. "Eef he call
| Raafa vat naua he lof har all aoaD,a