The Judge was a gentleman, and he was in his own house, so he got up, motioned her to a seat, and said, politely, “Good evening.”

“Good-night,” she said, curtly, then she looked about her.

O, the bitter envy and discontent of her face! The Judge averted his eyes. It was not pleasant to see that expression on the face of a child, for she was scarcely more.

“Why hev you got all this?” she said, suddenly, “and why hev I nothin’?”

The Judge made no reply except that of a mournful shake of his head.

“And why,” she went on, leaning eagerly forward from her chair and pinching the thin sleeve of her jacket, “do I hev to wear shoddy cloth an’ you wear broadcloth?”

“Only Oxford cloth,” said the Judge, protestingly, “only Oxford in this house suit.”

“How much did you pay for it?” she asked, grimly.

He made no reply, and she continued. “How much did you lay out on that diamond neck pin; how much did your house cost and this fine furniture?”

The Judge discreetly evaded an answer by a protesting wave of his hand, and at the same time thought that a few months previous to this he would have bowed the saucy little girl from the room. Now, although he wanted to get back to his reading, and he gazed wistfully at the heap of new literature on his table, he was really anxious to hear what the girl had to say. Something lay under this—so much he had learned of youthful ways. How the little wretches understood that he was interested in their confidences. They were as sharp as grown people.

“My girl,” he said, kindly, “what have you come here for?”

Before she answered him she pointed half angrily, half curiously at Sukey. “What’s that, an’ what’s it starin’ at me for, like as if I had no right to be here?”

The pigeon, to the Judge’s amusement, had resented Airy’s entrance as much as Bethany had done, but instead of retreating she advanced, stepping high, and curling each pink claw with indignation. The look on her high-bred face was delicious, coming from a pigeon. Her greenish-yellow eyes were stony, every feather in her hood quivered and seemed to close more protectingly about the little white head.

Once or twice before, the Judge had seen her act so in the presence of poor people, and he had laid her indignation down to a sense of smell, like that of the average dog, who hates a poor or dirty person. But Airy was a very clean child. The Judge knew what kind of a mother Mrs. Tingsby was, so his theory of smell would scarcely hold good in this case.

Possibly Sukey was sympathizing with Bethany, whom she had got to love devotedly. Anyway, the Judge must answer the child, so he said, kindly, “The bird is a pigeon; she is called a Jacobin.”

“She’s an ugly thing, anyway,” replied Airy, sulkily, “an’ she hates me. Shoo!” and she clapped her hands.

The indignant Sukey, who was no heroine, turned tail and scuttled under Bethany’s table, where the Judge heard a low growl of welcome greet her. Then, his two pets safely disposed of, he looked expectantly at Airy, hoping that she would remember his question as to her motive for calling on him.

She did remember, and, sinking back in her chair with a weary gesture, she said, “I’ve come to tell you that I wants to be a lady.”

“Poor child!” murmured the Judge, involuntarily. Then he tried to realize the enormity of the question thrust upon him.

“Why warn’t I born a lady?” pursued Airy, uncompromisingly. “Why warn’t I born your darter?”

“Well,” said the Judge, hesitatingly, “well, I suppose it pleased Providence to place you in another sphere.”

“Sphere!” she repeated, sneeringly, “that’s no word I ever heard. ’Pears to me you rich folks make up words to suit yourselves. But if I don’t know ‘sphere,’ I do not know one word, an’ that’s ‘Fiddlesticks!’”

“Well,” replied the Judge, with a polite movement of his head, “your word is a good old English one used by Southey, Thackeray, and others, though I believe it is unknown just how and why it became an expression of contempt.”

“I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at,” replied Airy, wearily, “but I’m goin’ to say my proposition over again: I wants to be a lady!”

The Judge, having heard the announcement before, bore it this time with fortitude.

“An’ what’s more,” she went on, “I wants you to help me.”

“What can I do?” inquired the Judge, in mild surprise.

“You can gab a bit with me now an’ then,” she said, earnestly. “Why, I took to you the first time I see you.”

“Did you,” replied the Judge. “Well—ahem!—I fancied that you were not much taken with me.”

“I was mad with you,” she said, frankly, “mad because I figgered that you was returnin’ Bethany on us. Then I was mad to think you didn’t get mad.”

“Do you get mad easily?”

“Awful easy. I’m mad ’most all the time. You see, I’m kind of sickly, an’ I hevn’t much relish for what I eats, an’ nothin’ makes you mad like pickin’ at yer food.”

“Poor child!” said the Judge, sympathetically.

“But I’m goin’ to be a lady,” she said, and her little sharp face hardened, “if I lives. If I dies it don’t matter.”

She was silent for a few seconds, being employed in a search among her patched and darned but clean garments for a rag of a handkerchief, as white as the morsel of linen peeping from the Judge’s own pocket.

“And what steps have you taken in the matter?” inquired the Judge, knowing that he was expected to take an interest in this question of ladyhood.

“Fust of all, I’ve quit work,” she replied. “What air you laughin’ at?” for the Judge was unable to conceal his amusement.

“Just at the idea of a lazy lady,” he replied; “go on, please.”

“Did I say I was goin’ to be lazy?” she returned, fiercely. “I’ve just stopped shopgirlin’ it, but I’m a-studyin’ like sixty.”

“O, going to school?”

“Yes, sir. Onct before I went, before I got into Moses & Brown’s big Dry Goods Emporium—all the latest fashions in ladies’ neckwear, underwear, street wear, house wear, weddin’ wear, funeral wear, summer wear, winter wear, an’ so on.”

The Judge drew a long breath. “Indeed!”

“Yes, I’m a-schoolin’ it. I tell you, when I saw where Bethany had come, an’ when that boy of yours come hurryin’ down River Street with books an’ things for us an’ hurryin’ off again like as we was poisoned, I begun to think, ‘It’s time I was lookin’ higher.’”

A doubtful expression passed over the Judge’s face, but instead of resenting it she went hurriedly on: “So the next time Barry Mafferty comes in, says I to him, ‘Barry, I wants to be a lady.’ Says he, ‘Then quit yer shop an’ go to school, an’ I’ll teach you Latin an’ French, ’cause you’ll not get them in the fust grades of the public.’ An’ he gave me a book. I can say mensa now—mensa, mensæ, mensæ, mensam, mensa, mensa. Mensæ, mensarum, mensis, mensas, mensæ, mensis. An’ musa, too,” and she glibly rattled off the declension of musa.

“And do you know what musa means?” inquired the Judge, somewhat helplessly, when she at last paused for want of breath.

“Musa, amuse,” she replied, quickly.

“And what is a muse?” pursued the Judge.

“You don’t know what amuse is at your time of life!” she said, sharply. “Come on, now, you’re just foolin’ me.”

“Ask Mafferty to tell you about the Muses the next time you go to him,” said the Judge. “At present you have a wrong idea of the meaning of the word.”

“Hev I?” she said, sharply. “I’ll find out better. Want to hear some French?”

“If you like,” replied the Judge, politely.

“Javvey, tavvey, lavvey, nouzaviong, vouzaviez, ilzong. Do you know what that means?”

“I can guess,” replied her friend, calmly.

“You want ter laugh,” she said, suddenly; “you’re bustin’, I can see, but wait till I’m gone. I hate to be larfed at.”

The Judge guiltily hung his head.

“Now,” she said, in a businesslike way, “I don’t want yer for teachin’ me French nor langwidges, nor grammar. What I wants is ladyness from yer. Come on, now, what’s the fust thing in bein’ a lady?”

She was intensely, terribly in earnest, and the Judge braced up.

“Well,” he said, seriously, “first of all, before I can give you one single word of advice, I want to know what you intend to make of young ladyhood—providing you attain to it.”

“Don’t understand all yer big words,” she said, “but I catches yer meanin’. What do I want to be a lady for? I wants to be a lady so as to make you an’ other men stand round.”

“Very good,” murmured the Judge; “but go on, pray.”

“What does you care for me now?” she said, disdainfully. “My name’s mud to you. I’m a River Street rat. Aint it so?”

“Well,” said the Judge, in a puzzled voice, “you are so extreme that I will have to qualify your statement.”

“It’s true,” she said, grimly, “you ’spises me. That makes me mad, ’cause I know the Lord made us both. That my mother has taught me, an’ I believe her. The Lord loves me as much as he loves you, but that don’t satisfy me. I’m goin’ to make you love me, too.”

The Judge shuddered, despite himself. This little sharp-voiced, bad-tempered, ambitious, plain-featured specimen of humanity was extremely repellent to him. It was really an act of Christian charity on his part to sit and listen to her.

But he must subdue his dislike. The poor little creature was unhappy. If he sent her away uncomforted and unaided he would have a sleepless night. Happily or unhappily for himself, he had so humored his conscience through life that he was obliged slavishly to obey its dictates or suffer the consequences.

Therefore he said, kindly, “What other object have you in becoming a lady besides that of making men stand round?”

“I wants to help my mother,” she said, solemnly, “an’ get her out of River Street. I wants a little home out among the fields for her where the ’lectrics run past an’ she can come in town fer her shoppin’. She’s a faithful mother, sir; she’s brought us up good.”

The Judge’s eyes filled with tears. Poor little, weak, frail creature, and yet not weak, for a noble spirit animated her sickly body.

“Now I am with you, my girl,” he exclaimed. “Now I will help you, for this aspiration is noble.”

The touch of sympathy caused a smile to break over her face. “An’ the children, sir,” she said, “could play. There’s grass out there where they could play. There aint no grass on River Street.”

“Don’t they play in the park that Mrs. Everest got for the River Street children?”

“O, yes, sir, but there be so many feet an’ so little grass. It’s all tramped down afore it has time to grow. Now, sir, please tell me, for I must be goin’, what is the fust thing, in your opinion, to be a lady?”

The Judge considered a minute, then he said: “Let us take your call in sections. When you came in the house I heard your voice away up here shrill and insistent. Now, what was there unladylike about that?”

“I ought to ’a’ spoke low,” she said, eagerly, “soft an’ low.”

“A real lady always speaks in a sweet voice, my child. Don’t scream when talking.”

“The real ladies did that when they come a-shoppin’,” she replied. “They said, ‘Please show me some white lace,’ jus’ as soft as milk.”

“Then take that as your first rule,” said the Judge. “Pitch your voice low. Next I would say that your manner was aggressive when you came in.”

“An’ what are you tryin’ to give me there?” she said, quickly. “What’s aggressive?”

The Judge was intensely amused. Her words were rude, but so well had she remembered his advice that her voice was pitched in a low, almost a sweet, key.

“Rule two,” he observed, “be respectful. Now, I am a much older person than you. You should not address me in the rude, flippant tone in which you address a street urchin. But I am perhaps wrong here. In the course of my life I have observed how popular are the persons who have respect for everyone—even their own servants. One human being has no right to treat another human being with disrespect. Just wait a minute and I will give you an object lesson,” and getting up he rang the bell.

Presently there was a knock at the door.

“You hear that?” he said to Airy. “The maid knocks at the door of this room because it is not a public but a private room. She knocks at our bedroom doors also. She does not knock at the dining room or the parlor door. That is one way of being respectful. Now see how politely she will answer me when she enters,” and he said in a clear voice, “Come in.”

Jennie stepped inside and stood in her neat gown and white apron looking expectantly at him.

“Has a parcel come for me this evening from the druggist’s?” inquired the Judge.

“Yes, sir, quite a large parcel. Would you like to have it here?”

“No, thank you; in my bedroom.”

“Very well, sir. Is that all?”

“Yes, Jennie; but no—go to the sitting room and ask Master Dallas to come here.”

“Certainly, sir,” and with a pleasant look she closed the door and went away.

The Judge looked at Airy. Her lips were parted, her eyes were intense.

“Now you will see a polite, respectful boy,” he said, and at that instant there was another knock at the door.

“Come in,” said the Judge, and Dallas appeared.

“My boy,” said the Judge, “this young girl is a daughter of a woman who was very kind to Bethany.”

Dallas turned to Airy and made her such an exquisite bow that she caught her breath and gasped, “O, my!”

The Judge bit his lip. “Miss Airy Tingsby and Mr. Dallas de Warren. Now you will know each other the next time you meet. How have you been getting on with your studies this evening, Dallas?”

“Very well, sir, though perhaps not as well as usual, on account of the Higby affair. It amused Titus.”

“Will you give Miss Airy an account of it?” said the Judge. “It is not polite for two persons to talk before a third of something that he or she does not understand.”

In a perfectly calm and courteous way Dallas, without appearing to notice that his new acquaintance belonged to one of the poorest classes in society, gave her an account of the unfortunate Higby’s fright.

Airy hung on his words in entranced silence. Never before in her young life had anyone addressed her with so much deference. A delightful sensation ran through her veins. She could have sat till midnight listening to that mellifluous voice.

“And now we must not keep you,” said the Judge, when Dallas, having finished his recital, turned to him. “By the way, though, what are you reading in Latin just now?”

“The first book of the Æneid, sir.”

“You find it interesting?”

“Intensely so, sir. Æneas had so many adventures.”

“This young girl is also studying Latin,” said the Judge. “Airy, can you decline mensa for Dallas?”

In a low, gentle voice, and with a manner so full of caution that it was almost terrified, Airy got through her task with credit to herself and her friend. Dallas listened politely and showed not a sign of a smile.

After she finished he thanked her, and then turned to the Judge again, who dismissed him by a smile.

“I will say good-night, sir,” said Dallas, “then I will not need to disturb you later on.”

“Very well, good-night,” and the Judge extended a hand.

Dallas shook hands with him, bowed to Airy, and left the room.

The little girl drew a long breath and rose to her feet. “I’ve had enough for to-night. Sir, if ever I get rich and you get poor, just you come to me an’ I’ll help you.”

The Judge smiled mournfully. Poor child—how easy to bridge the gulf between them by words, and yet she was an apt pupil.

“You are a little girl to be out alone in the evening,” he said. “By the way, how old are you?”

“Thirteen, sir; ’most fourteen.”

“How are you going to get home?”

“Some one is waitin’ for me, sir, across the street. He’s a boy does odd jobs for us. When can I come agin, sir?” she went on, eagerly.

“When would you like to come?”

“Say this night week, sir. I’ll hev to shine up my manners till then. My! but it’ll be hard not to yell in River Street. It’s easy enough to be soft here, ’cause you’ve no one to yell at you.”

“This night week, then,” replied the Judge; “good-bye.”

“Good-bye, sir,” and to his amusement she awkwardly shook hands with him, then darted from the room like a bird.

“I’ll have to teach her to go slowly next lesson,” said the Judge, with a smile, and leisurely stepping into the hall he looked out of the window.

Airy was just joining her escort, or escorts, for there were two. To the Judge’s dismay the electric light across the street shone full on the faces of Brick, the colored boy, and the spotted dog.

Both had probably spent the last hour in front of his house, and Bethany was only a few steps away. Suppose she had gone to the window; and retracing his steps the Judge went into his study and sitting down began to think over the visit he had just had.

The tablecloth waving violently attracted his attention. “Hello, little girl,” he said, affectionately, “come out. Daddy Grandpa is alone.”

There was no response beyond a continuance of low growling.

The Judge had made a mistake. It was not Bethany under the table; it was Bylow.

“Good dog,” he said, “come here.”

She immediately crawled out on all fours, snapping and snarling at every object she passed, and accompanied by Sukey, who also was in a bad temper and pecked at everything near her.

On Bethany’s way to the Judge she suddenly caught sight of a piece of wrapping paper that had come round a book and had fallen to the floor. Seizing it in her hands, she tore it to pieces. The Judge thought that her small teeth also aided in the work of destruction. Not till the paper was in ribbons, and she herself was damp with perspiration from the violence of her emotion, did she give up her dog incarnation and become demure little Bethany again.

The Judge stared. He had never seen her in a rage before. However, she was quite self-possessed now, and putting the grumbling pigeon in her basket and seating herself beside her she began softly to stroke and smooth her disturbed feathered friend.

After a time she addressed a gentle remark to the Judge over her shoulder. “So you have had ‘Airy Mary, so contrary,’ here this evening?”

“Yes, I have,” he returned. “Why did you not stay out and see her; don’t you like her?”

“Airy once slapped Bethany,” she remarked, meditatively.

The Judge made no reply. Evidently the two girls were not affinities.

“Annie never slapped Bethany,” the child presently remarked.

Annie, the Judge knew, was Mrs. Tingsby’s second daughter. However, once more he did not feel called upon to give an expression of opinion, and Bethany went on: “To-night week I shall go to the country with Ellen and Susie.”

The Judge rang the bell. “Jennie,” he said, when the parlor maid appeared, “here is a little girl that wants to go to bed.”

Bethany got up sweetly. She kissed Sukey good-night, then she went to the Judge and threw her arms round his neck. “Good-night, dear Daddy Grandpa.”

“Good-night, my child,” he responded, and as he spoke he felt how dear indeed the little affectionate, jealous creature had become to him.

She seemed to part from him with reluctance. However, she took Jennie’s hand agreeably enough, but in the doorway she turned and fired a parting shot that immensely amused the unfortunate man attacked.

“Daddy Grandpa,” she said, sternly, “ladies is born, not made,” then she disappeared with Jennie.

The Judge sat down in his big chair, alone at last with what remnant of calm these children had left him. Which was the more remarkable, Bethany or Airy? Bethany with her queer, old-fashioned, precocious, yet strangely childlike ways, or the bitter, repellent Airy?

How strange that through his life he had heard so little about child study! He must find out what books there were on the subject. However, books or no books, these children bade fair to make a psychologist of him.