Haggerty had decided to walk. It was a brisk night, but still, the stars twinkled above the black tree crops, what better way to think things through, and think she must about the lecture on sanitation she would deliver to the women's club the following afternoon. Tea time.          Her mouth remained firm.          Whatever it took. If she must hold little sticky squares and manage translucent crockery simultaneously in order for her plea to be heard then stand and hold she would. Her footsteps were a steady rhythm upon the walk.          Suddenly from between 2fat rugged elms stepped several shapes.          Women.          Haggerty's shoulders relaxed. Petitioners had come to her before and in more curious circumstances. She stopped. Adjusting her spectacles she inquired, "Yes?"          She distinguished 3 individuals but thought there were other shapes among the trees, 2 or 3 more.          1 of the 3 stepped forward and Haggerty for a moment was struck by the thought that she had been mistaken, there was a male among them, but then the lithe form spoke moving slightly and the movement was a woman's sinuosity. She was young, tall, slender, strong, endowed with a wealth of dark hair and arresting eyes.          Haggerty gripped her case, for once felt her grip upon it clumsy and uncertain. This had never happened before. But she felt that all was changing.          "Dr. Haggerty, we have a request." The woman set back a portion of her cape across a shoulder, broad shoulders for a woman, straight, proudly held yet with an ease inherent.          "Yes?" Haggerty said again. She felt no alarm as she felt no surprise. She was there  for requests to find.          "We would like you to come with us."          "Certainly. Someone is ill? Someone is injured?"          "No," the woman said, her face was shadowed, her voice was shadowed, her form was shadowed by a limb, "not yet."          Haggerty's mobile face rearranged itself in perplexity. "I don't see---"          "If you would come," the woman gestured, it was a courtly sketch which plucked at Haggerty from another time, she thought at 1st, and then was not so sure. She felt a curious longing to understand.          There was a woman just behind whose golden hair was silvered in a fleeting slant of moon. Its light could not find the deep dark eyes of the woman who spoke.          Haggerty retained a grim grid work the schedule of tasks she must complete this night. "If you could give me an idea---"          From within the trees a whisper, "We have little time, Esme(e)."         The tall woman spoke again, "We wish you to aid us in preventing an accident."          "If I can, certainly, though preventing isn't---but if I can help---where---who?"          "Yourself, Dr. Haggerty."          Haggerty halted abruptly. She set her head back to eye the speaker critically. "I've no time for games, you understand."          "Perfectly."          "We have less time," said the shadowed form.          "In that case, lead on," Haggerty pronounced.          Almost Esme(e) smiled.