create scarcely a stir; for, without Abraham, she was only one of a
group of poor, old women in a semi-charity home.

Slowly she started up the stairs for her bonnet and the old broche
shawl. When she reached the landing, where lay the knitted mat of the
three-star pattern, the matron called up to her in tragic tones:

"Angy Rose, I jest thought of it. He never kissed yew good-by!"

Angy turned, her small, slender feet sinking deep into one of the
woolly stars, her slim figure encircled by the light from the upper hall
window. She saw a dozen faces uplifted to her, and she answered with
quiet dignity:

"Abe wouldn't think of kissin' me afore folks."

Then quickly she turned again, and went to her room--their room--where
she seated herself at the window, and pressed her hand against her heart
which hurt with a new, strange, unfamiliar pain, a pain that she could
not have shown "afore folks."




XIV

CUTTING THE APRON-STRINGS


The usual hardy pleasure-seekers that gather at the foot of Shore Lane