lend anybody money, or come home lugging somebody else's
baby!"

With such reflections, and an ugly sensation of loneliness creeping over
her, Tilly went to assure Miss Minnie Higbee of her mother's safety. She
described her reception to Harry Lossing and Alma, later. "She really
seemed kinder mad at me," says Tilly, "seemed to think I was interfering
somehow. And she hadn't any business to feel that way, for SHE didn't
know how I'd fooled her brother with that bird-cage. I guess the poor
old lady daren't call her soul her own. I'd hate to have my mother that
way--so 'fraid of me. MY mother shall go where she pleases, and stay
where she pleases, and DO as she pleases."

"That makes me think," says Alma, "I heard you were going to move."

"Yes, we are. Mother is working too hard. She knows everybody in the
building, and they call on her all the time; and I think the easiest way
out is just to move."

Alma and Mr. Lossing exchanged glances. There is an Arabian legend of
an angel whose trade it is to decipher the language of faces. This angel
must have perceived that Alma's eyes said, with the courage of a second
in a duel, "Go on, now is the time!" and that Harry's answered, with
masculine pusillanimity, "I don't like to!"

But he spoke. "Very likely your mother does sometimes work too hard,"
said he. "But don't you think it would be harder for her not to work?
Why, she must have been in the building ever since my father bought
it; and she's been a janitor and a fire inspector and a doctor and a
ministering angel combined! That is why we never raised the rent to you
when we improved the building, and raised it on the others. My father
told me your mother was the best paying tenant he ever had. And don't
you remember how, when I used to come with him, when I was a little boy,
she used to take me in her room while he went the rounds? She was always
doing good to everybody, the same way. She has a heart as big as the
Mississippi, and I assure you, Miss Louder, you won't make her happy,
but miserable, if you try to dam up its channel. She has often told me
that she loved the building and all the people in it. They all love her.
I HOPE, Miss Louder, you'll think of those things before you decide. She
is so unselfish that she would go in a minute if she thought it would
make you happier." The angel aforesaid, during this speech (which Harry
delivered with great energy and feeling), must have had all his wits
busy on Tilly'