A Bookful of Girls

Blythe glanced down and away from this stirring outlook, she could just distinguish among the dark figures of the steerage the small white face of the child upturned toward the sky; and again a sharp pang took her, a feeling that the little creature did not belong among those rough men and women. No wonder that the beautiful Italian eyes always sought the sky; it was their only refuge from sordid sights.

"I suppose the woman meant that the child was her little mistress; did she not?" Blythe asked abruptly.

"That was what I understood."

"It's probably a romance; don't you think so?" and Blythe felt that she was applying to a high authority for information on such a head.

"Looks like it," the great authority opined. "I think we shall have to investigate the case."

"Oh, will you? And you speak Italian so beautifully!"

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, I'm sure of it! It sounds so exactly like the hand-organ men!"

"Look here, Miss Blythe," the poet protested, "yo