school-master's old-fashioned notions about women. He was a
sickly-looking soul. One day Lois had heard him say that there
were pawpaws on his mother's place in Ohio; so after that she
always brought him some every day. She was one of those people
who must give, if it is nothing better than a Kentucky banana.

After they passed the stone quarry, they left the country behind
them, going down the stubble-covered hills that fenced in the
town. Even in the narrow streets, and through the warehouses,
the strong, dewy air had quite blown down and off the fog and
dust. Morning (town morning, to be sure, but still morning) was
shining in the red window-panes, in the tossing smoke up in the
frosty air, in the very glowing faces of people hurrying from
market with their noses nipped blue and their eyes watering with
cold. Lois and her cart, fresh with country breath hanging about
them, were not so out of place, after all. House-maids left the
steps half-scrubbed, and helped her measure out the corn and
beans, gossiping eagerly; the newsboys "Hi-d!" at her in a
friendly, patronizing way; women in rusty black, with sharp, pale
faces, hoisted their baskets, in which usually lay a scraggy bit
of flitch, on to the wheel, their whispered bargaining ending
oftenest in a low "Thank ye, Lois!"--for she sold cheaper to some
people than they did in the market.

Lois was Lois in town or country. Some subtile power lay in the
coarse, distorted body, in the pleading child's face, to rouse,
wherever they went, the same curious, kindly smile. Not, I
think, that dumb, pathetic eye, common to deformity, that cries,
"Have mercy upon me, O my friend, for the hand of God hath
touched me!"--a deeper, mightier charm, rather: a trust down in