t of the outcry of tortured
steam. All day, if not all night, the crooked pole slips up and down the
trolley wire, as the yellow cars rattle, and flash, and clang a spiteful
little bell, that sounds like a soprano bark, over the crossings.

It is customary in the Lossing Building to say, "We are so handy to the
cars." The street is a handsome street, not free from dingy old brick
boxes of stores below the railway, but fast replacing them with fairer
structures. The Lossing Building has the wide arches, the recessed
doors, the balconies and the colonnades of modern business architecture.
The occupants are very proud of the balconies, in particular; and,
summer days, these will be a mass of greenery and bright tints. To-day,
it was so warm, February day though it was, that some of the potted
plants were sunning themselves outside the windows.

Tilly could see them if she craned her neck. There were some bouvardias
and fuchsias of her mother's among them.

"It IS a pretty building," said Tilly; and, for some reason, she
frowned.

She was a young woman, but not a very young woman. Her figure was slim,
and she looked better in loose waists than in tightly fitted gowns. She
wore a dark green gown with a black jacket, and a scarlet shirt-waist
underneath. Her face was long, with square chin and high cheek-bones,
and thin, firm lips; yet she was comely, because of her lustrous black
hair, her clear, gray eyes, and her charming, fair skin. She had another
gift: everything about her was daintily neat; at first glance one said,
"Here is a person who has spent pains, if not money, on her toilet."

By this time Tilly was entering the Lossing Building. Half-way up the
stairway a hand plucked her skirts. The hand belonged to a tired-faced
woman in black, on whose breast glittered a little crowd of pins and
threaded needles, like the insignia of an Order of Toil.

"Please excuse me, Miss Tilly," said the woman, at the same time
presenting a flat package in brown paper, "but WILL you give this
pattern back to your mother. I am so very much obliged. I don't know how
I WOULD git along without your mother, Tilly."

"I'll give the pattern to her," said Tilly, and she pursued her way.

Not very far. A stout woman and a thin young man, with long, wavy, red
hair, awaited her on the landing. The woman held a plate of cake which
she thrust at Tilly the instant they were on the same level, saying:
"The cake was just splendid, tell your mo