Prologue
_ The older I get the more convinced I become that the most fascinating persons in this world are those elusive souls whom we know perfectly well but whom we never, as children say, "get to meet." They slip out of countries, or towns--or rooms even,--just before we arrive, leaving us with an inexplicable feeling of having been cheated of something that was rightfully and divinely ours. That‘s the way I still feel about little Miss By-the-Day. Perhaps you, too, have been baffled by the will-o‘-the-wispishness of that whimsical young person. Perhaps you, too, tried to find her but never did.
She sounded so casual and commonplace when I first began hearing about her that I let her slip through my fingers. She was just a little seamstress who had a "vairee" odd way of speaking； it was quite a long time before I realized that everybody who spoke about her was unconsciously trying to imitate her drawling voice. And then I noticed that everybody who mentioned her smil

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