and bound the blossoms into a bunch, she arrested his finishing
touch.

"Wait a moment. How much more for one Grand Duke jasmine in the
centre?"

"Ten cents, Miss."

She added the dime to the pennies she could ill afford to spare from
her small hoard, and said: "Will you be so kind as to sprinkle it? I
wish it kept fresh, for a sick lady."

Dusky shadows were gathering in the gloomy hall of the old tenement
house, when Beryl opened the door of the comfortless attic room,
where for many months she had struggled bravely to shield her mother
from the wolf, that more than once snarled across the threshold.

Mrs. Brentano was sitting in a low chair, with her elbows on her
knees, her face hidden in her palms; and in her lap lay paper and
pencil, while a sealed letter had fallen on the ground beside her.
At the sound of the opening door, she lifted her head, and tears
dripped upon the paper. In her faded flannel dressing-gown, with
tresses of black hair straggling across her shoulders, she presented
a picture of helpless mental and physical woe, which painted itself
indelibly on the panels of her daughter's heart.

"Why did you not wait until I came home? The exertion of getting up
always fatigues you."

"You staid so long--and I am so uncomfortable in that wretchedly