about her.

Carl did not say anything, but she felt his sympathy. He, too, was
lonely. He was a thin, frail boy, with brooding dark eyes, very
quiet in all his movements. There was a delicate pallor in his thin
face, and his mouth was too sensitive for a boy's. The lips had
already a little curl of bitterness and skepticism. The two friends
stood for a few moments on the windy street corner, not speaking
a word, as two travelers, who have lost their way, sometimes stand
and admit their perplexity in silence. When Carl turned away he
said, "I'll see to your team." Alexandra went into the store to
have her purchases packed in the egg-boxes, and to get warm before
she set out on her long cold drive.

When she looked for Emil, she found him sitting on a step of the
staircase that led up to the clothing and carpet department. He
was playing with a little Bohemian girl, Marie Tovesky, who was
tying her handkerchief over the kitten's head for a bonnet. Marie
was a stranger in the country, having come from Omaha with her mother
to visit her uncle, Joe Tovesky. She was a dark child, with brown
curly hair, like a brunette doll's, a coaxing little red mouth, and
round, yellow-brown eyes. Every one noticed her eyes; the brown
iris had golden glints that made them look like gold-stone, or, in
softer lights, like that Colorado mineral called tiger-eye.

The country children thereabouts wore their dresses to their
shoe-tops, but this city child was dressed in what was then called
the "Kate Greenaway" manner, and her red cashmere frock, gathered
full from the yoke, came almost to the floor. This, with her
poke bonnet, gave her the look of a quaint little woman. She had