.
The sharp wind wrapped her calico skirt about her stiffened limbs, and
her only wrap was a little black knitted fascinator which did not meet
over the torn calico blouse.

"A wee nip of gin would go right to the spot now, wouldn't it, dearie?"
the old soul asked wistfully, which reminded me of something I had
forgotten: that I still had my precious dollar and a half snugly stowed
away in my petticoat pocket. So I suggested that we go to a lunch-room
and have a good meal and a cup of hot coffee, and sit there till
daylight, which now was not far off.

The prospect of something to eat and something hot to drink infused
great cheerfulness into my strange chaperon; she grasped my arm with the
gaiety of a school-girl, and we walked eastward until we came to a dairy
lunch-room upon the great plate-glass windows of which was enameled in
white letters a generous bill of fare at startlingly low prices. The
place was of the sort where everybody acts as his own waiter, buying
checks for whatever he wants from the cashier and presenting them at a
long counter piled up with eatables. Mrs. Reynolds was modesty itself in
accepting of my bounty.

When we had finished it was daylight, and I parted from my duenna at the
door, she with innumerable terms of maudlin endearment, and an
invocation to all the saints in the calendar that they should keep a
kindly eye upon me. As to my own feelings, I felt heartless to be
obliged to leave the poor creature with nothing more than a
twenty-five-cent piece, and with no proffer of future help--if, indeed,
she was not beyond help. But I was powerless; for I was as poor as she
was. I had suggested her applying to the authorities for aid, but she
had received it scornfully, even indignantly, declaring that Mrs.
Bridget Reynolds would die and rot before she'd be beholden to anybody
for charity. Anything in the shape of organized authority was her
constitutional enemy, and the policeman was her hereditary foe.
Hospitals were nefarious places where the doctors poisoned you and the
nurses neglected you in order that you should die and furnish one more
cadaver to the dissecting-rooms; almshouses were the last resort of the
broken in heart and spirit, institutions where unspeakable crimes were
perpetrated upon the old and helpless. Therefore, was it any wonder this
independent old dame of Erin preferred deserted warehouses and dark
doorways as shelter?

And so, early in this Easter morning, I left Mrs