"Good morning, Mrs. Sampson."

"Good morning, Joan."

"Isn't it a nice day?"

"It's cold, I think. Is your mother well?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Give her my love."

"I will, Mrs. Sampson."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Mrs. Sampson's nose, that would take on a blue colour on a cold day,
quivered, her thin mouth shut with a snap, and she was gone.

"But I wasn't afraid of her!" She was almost frightened at this new spirit
that had come to her, and, feeling rather that in another moment she would
be punished for her piratical audacity, she turned up the steps into the
Circulating Library.

It was the custom in those days that far away from the dust of the grimy
shelves, in the very middle of the room, there was a table with all the
latest works of fiction in their gaudy bindings, a few volumes of poetry
and a few memoirs. Close to this table Miss Milton sat, wrapped, in the