clear out when she liked, for he was sick of her pale
face an' her big eyes an' her airs, an' meant to bring a woman there
with some life in her."

"'Things don't come out as we plan,' she said. 'I was going to be a
lady, but I forgot that anybody had anything to do with it but myself.
An' now I can't go to any decent place, an' Charley doesn't want me any
longer. See how nice it all looks here, Maria. I've fixed it myself, an'
I've always been so glad that after the play was over I could come
_home_--not to somebody else's room, but my own place--an' I never
thought there was any reason why it wouldn't always be my place. Men
aren't like women. I was true to Charley, and I'll never think of
anybody else; but he says I must get out of this.'

"Well, I wanted her to understand that I knew plenty would help her, an'
I tried to tell her she could begin a different life; but she just
opened her eyes, astonished at me.

"'You think I'd go to one of those Homes?' she said. 'You're crazy. I
can make my livin' easy enough at the theatre, even if I'm not so strong
as I was. What have I done more than anybody, after all? Do you think
I'd be pointed at an' talked over the way those women are? I'd throw
myself in the river first! I've learned enough these years. I go to
church sometimes, an' hear men in the pulpit talk about things I know
better than they do. I've found out what the good people, the
respectable people, are like. I've found out, too, what I might have
been, an' that if I live a thousand years I never can be it in this
world; an' that's one reason I thought Charley might be willing to marry
me. But I shall never say anything more now, for, you see, it isn't
goin' to make so very much matter. I had a bad cold in the spring, an'
the doctor said then I must be very careful or I should go with
consumption. See my arm? They said the other day I'd have to do
something to plump up, but I never shall: I'm goin', an' I'm glad of
it.'

"'Then, if that's got to be, let it be goin' home,' I said. 'Nan,
there's everything waitin' for you if you'll only take it. Come down to
one of the meetin's an' you'll hear. Won't you?'

"'I don't understand it,' she said. 'Everything's in a twist. Years an'
years and never hear of God, an' not a soul come near you to tell about
Him, an' all at once they say He loves you, and always has. Bah! If He
loved, an' people think about it as they pretend, how dare they let
there be such places fo