eyes, always weak, were watery now from the sharp evening air, and her long nose red at the tip. She wore neat, plain clothes, and a small hat, and laid black lisle gloves and a small black book beside her plate as she sat down.

"Good evening, everybody!" said she, pleasantly. "Late comers mustn't complain, Ma, dear. I met Mrs. Curry, poor thing, coming out of the League rooms, and time flew, as time has a way of doing! She was telling me about Harry," Miss Virginia sighed, peppering her soup slowly. "He knew he was going," she resumed, "and he left all his little things--"

"Gracious! A child of seven?" Mrs. Parker said.

"Oh, yes! She said there was no doubt of it."

The conversation turned upon death, and the last acts of the dying. Loretta Parker related the death of a young saint. Miss Lord, pouring a little lime water into most of her food, chewed religiously, her eyes moving from one speaker's face to another.

"I saw my pearl to-day," said William Oliver to Susan, under cover of the general conversation.

"Eleanor Harkness? Where?"

"On Market Street,--the little darling! Walking with Anna Carroll. Going to the boat."

"Oh, and how's Anna?"

"Fine, I guess. I only spoke to them for a minute. I wish you could have seen her dear little laugh--"

"Oh, Billy, you fatuous idiot! It'll be someone else to-morrow."

"It will NOT," said William, without conviction "No, my little treasure has all my heart--"

"Honestly," said Susan, in fine scorn, "it's cat-sickening to hear you go on that way! Especially with that snapshot of Anna Carroll still in your watch!"

"That snapshot doesn't happen to be still in my watch, if it's any business of yours!" the gentleman said, sweetly.

"Why, it is TOO! Let's see it, then!"

"No, I won't let you see it, but it's not there, just the same."

"Oh, Billy, what an awful lie!"

"Susan!" said Mrs. Lancaster, partly in reproof, partly to call her niece's attention to apple-pie and tapioca pudding.

"Pudding, please, auntie." Susan subsided, not to break forth again until the events of the day suddenly rushed into her mind. She hastily reviewed them for William's benefit.

"Well, what do you care?" he consoled her for the disappointment, "here's your chance to bone up on the segregating, or crediting, or whatever you call it."

"Yes, and then have someone else get it!"

"No one else could get it, if you understood it best!" he said impatiently.

"That shows just about how much you know about the office!" Susan retorted, vexed at his lack of sympathy. And she returned to her pudding, with the real cream of the day's news yet untold.

A few moments later Billy was excused, for a struggle with German in the night school, and departed with a joyous, "Auf wiedersehen, Fraulein Brown!" to Susan. Such boarders as desired were now drinking their choice between two dark, cool fluids that might have been tea, or might have been coffee, or might have been neither.

"I am going a little ahead of you and Georgie, Ma," said Virginia, rising, "for I want to see Mamie Evans about tickets for Saturday."

"Say, listen, Jin, I'm not going to-night," said Miss Georgie, hastily, and with a little effort.

"Why, you said you were, Georgie!" the older sister said reproachfully. "I thought you'd bring Ma."

"Well, I'm not, so you thought wrong!" Georgie responded airily.

"Somebody coming to see you, dear?" asked her mother.

"I don't know--maybe." Miss Georgie got up, brushing the crumbs from her lap.

"Who is it, dear?" her mother pursued, too casually.

"I tell you it may not be anyone, Ma!" the girl answered, suddenly irritated. A second later they heard her running upstairs.

"I really ought to be early--I promised Miss Evans--" Virginia murmured.

"Yes, I know, lovey," said her mother. "So you run right along. I'll just do a few little things here, and come right after you." Virginia was Mrs. Lancaster's favorite child, now she kissed her warmly. "Don't get all tired out, my darling!" said she, and when the girl was gone she added, "Never gives ONE thought to herself!"

"She's an angel!" said Loretta Parker fervently.

"But I kind of hate to have you go down to League Hall alone, Ma," said Mary Lou, who was piling dishes and straightening the room, with Susan's help.

"Yes, let us put you on the car," Susan suggested.

"I declare I hate to have you," the older woman hesitated.

"Well, I'll change," Mary Lou sighed wearily. "I'll get right into my things, a breath of air will do us both good, won't it, Sue?"

Presently they all walked to the McAllister Street car. Susan, always glad to be out at night, found something at which to stop in every shop window; she fairly danced along at her cousin's side, on the way back.

"I think Fillmore Street's as gay as Kearney, don't you, Mary Lou? Don't you just hate to go in. Don't you wish something exciting would happen?"

"What a girl you are for wanting excitement, Sue. I want to get back and see that Georgie hasn't shut everyone out of the parlor!" worried Mary Lou.

They went through the basement door to the dining room, where one or two old ladies were playing solitaire, on the red table-cloth, under the gas-light. Susan drew up a chair, and plunged into a new library book. Mary Lou, returning from a trip upstairs, said noiselessly, "Gone walking!" and Susan looked properly disgusted at Georgie's lack of propriety. Mary Lou began a listless game of patience, with a shabby deck of cards taken from the sideboard drawer, presently she grew interested, and Susan put aside her book, and began to watch the cards, too. The old ladies chatted at intervals over their cards. One game followed another, Mary Lou prefacing each with a firm, "Now, no more after this one, Sue," and a mention of the time.