spent. But there was something in her wide gray eyes--a dignity and a
command--that completely dominated the shrewish wife of the hump-
shouldered tailor, something that made the slatternly creature back
out of the room, for Felicia Day, with her hand on the battered iron
railing of the bed, had said clearly, "Woman, go at once."

And when the door was shut she sat down in one chair and put Babiche
carefully on the bed. She untied Louisa's bonnet and dropped it to the
floor; she loosed the cumbersome traveling coat. Far out on the river
the ferry boats and tugs were signaling; across the water the glamour
of a million lights shone toward her. It was quite dark now; she
stumbled to the window and looked down into the back yard. The dusk
had mercifully blurred out for her the heaps of refuse and ashes that
were dumped upon the spot where the narcissus border had been. The
great iron pots on the top of the garden wall loomed out of the
shadows. She looked straight down on the gate to the rectory yard.

She sunk in a crumpled heap and rested her weary head on the window
sill, then groped for the wee doggie as she heard the faint click of
its tiny paws coming toward her over the bare floor.

"Oh, Babiche!" she whispered, "Babiche, how happy--we should be--to be
home!"




CHAPTER IV