before it would stitch all of the endless number of jeans belts.
Her fingers trembled with nervous haste as she pinned up the
unwieldy black bundle of finished work, and her feet fairly
tripped over each other in their eagerness to get to Claiborne
Street, where she could board the up-town car. There was a
feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation, a foolish
happiness that brought a faint echo of colour into her pinched
cheeks. She wondered why.

No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line
are too much accustomed to frail little black-robed women with
big, black bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights.
She leaned her head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the
oleanders on Bayou Road, when her attention was caught by a
conversation in the car.

"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the
elder man. "I can't see what he is to do."

Neale! She pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom
in the Jesuit Church.

"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a
stranger, evidently; a stranger with a high regard for the
faultlessness of male attire.

"Well, the firm failed first; he didn't mind that much, he was so
sure of his uncle's inheritance repairing his lost fortunes; but
suddenly this difficulty of identification springs up, and he is
literally on the verge of ruin."