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8
FIDELIA

which matched her coat and was of a hue most effective with her hair. She was conscious that she was being rated and that the moment was of great importance to her; and she made no error.

Coming out upon the street where fine flakes of snow were blowing in the wind from the east, she glanced about at the opposite shop and restaurant windows already alight in the early dusk of this gray February afternoon and almost at once she nodded toward the first in a row of cars-for-hire waiting beside the station. When the negro driver brought his car up, she said in a clear, agreeable voice: "Take me, please, to Mrs. Fansler's. Do you know where it is?"

"No'm; but git right in, ma'm. I find out quick. Up by de un'versity, you mean, or down in de town?"

"Up by the university, I think," Fidelia said but did not enter the cab, pending the driver's gaining information which he sought by yelling at the colored boy on the next car: "Zeb, you know whereall Mis' Fansler's?"

"Pete you know the Delta A house," a curt Caucasian voice put in from behind. "Mrs. Fansler's is on the same side of the street two doors beyond."

"Oh, thank you," said Fidelia turning to the student, who had cleared up her difficulty as Pete made it plain that he was quite familiar with the location of Delta A. "Thank you so much!"

She found herself speaking to the shortest of the three young men who were in a row on the walk, evidently having waited to see her away before they proceeded. He was rather a homely boy with a