One bright, breezy October afternoon, Sam Kimper's daughter Jane got
"an hour off" from her duties at the hotel, and proceeded to devote it
to her highest ideal of possible enjoyment. There were many other
pleasures for which she longed, but, as they were unattainable just
then, she made the most of that which was within her reach for the time
being. It was to array herself in her best and saunter to and fro in
the principal streets, look into shop windows, and exchange winks and
rude remarks with young men and women with whom she was acquainted.

Although her attire was about what one would expect of a drunkard's
child who had spent her later years in the kitchen and corridors of a
hotel, Jane was not an unsightly creature. There must have been good
physical quality in one side or other of her family, in past
generations, which was trying to reappear, for Jane had a fine figure,
expressive eyes, and a good complexion. Had any one followed her during
her afternoon stroll, and observed her closely during her successive
chance meetings with young men and women of her acquaintance, he would
have seen hard lines, coarse lines, ugly lines, in her face; yet when
in repose the same face was neither unwomanly nor without an occasional
suggestion of soul. It was a face like many others that one may see on
the streets,--entirely human, yet entirely under the control of
whatever influence might be about it for the time being,--the face of a
nature untrained and untaught, which would have followed either Jesus
or Satan, or both by turns, had both appeared before it in visible
shape.

During a moment or two of her afternoon out, Jane found herself
approaching Mrs. Prency and Eleanor, those ladies being out on one of
those serious errands known collectively as "shopping."