Harley."
"It seems so strange a place," the girl ventured, with a hesitation that
showed her anxiety not to offend his local pride. "You see I never before
was in a place where there was no grass and nothing green in sight. And
to-night, when I looked out of the window and saw streams of red-hot fire
running down hills, I thought of Paradise Lost and Dante. I suppose it
doesn't seem at all uncanny to you?"
"At night sometimes I still get that feeling, but I have to cultivate it a
bit," he confessed. "My sober second thought insists that those molten
rivers are merely business, refuse disgorged as lava from the great
smelters."
"I looked for the sun to-day through the pall of sulphur smoke that hangs
so heavy over the town, but instead I saw a London gas-lamp hanging in the
heavens. Is it always so bad?"
"Not when the drift of the wind is right. In fact, a day like this is quite
unusual."
"I'm glad of that. I feel more cheerful in the sunshine. I know that's a
bit of the child still left in me. Mr. Harley takes all days alike."
The Wall Street operator was in slippers and house-jacket.
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