and fuchsias of her mother's among them.

"It IS a pretty building," said Tilly; and, for some reason, she frowned.

She was a young woman, but not a very young woman.
Her figure was slim, and she looked better in loose waists
than in tightly fitted gowns. She wore a dark green gown
with a black jacket, and a scarlet shirt-waist underneath.
Her face was long, with square chin and high cheek-bones,
and thin, firm lips; yet she was comely, because of her lustrous
black hair, her clear, gray eyes, and her charming, fair skin.
She had another gift: everything about her was daintily neat;
at first glance one said, "Here is a person who has spent pains,
if not money, on her toilet."

By this time Tilly was entering the Lossing Building.
Half-way up the stairway a hand plucked her skirts.
The hand belonged to a tired-faced woman in black, on whose
breast glittered a little crowd of pins and threaded needles,
like the insignia of an Order of Toil.

"Please excuse me, Miss Tilly," said the woman, at the same time
presenting a flat package in brown paper, "but WILL you give
this pattern back to your mother. I am so very much obliged.
I don't know how I WOULD git along without your mother, Tilly."

"I'll give the pattern to her," said Tilly, and she pursued her way.

Not very far. A stout woman and a thin young man,
with long, wavy, red hair, awaited her on the landing.