ugh I never said another word to her, but just
kept on bidding her the time of day, as if nothing had ever passed
between us. I felt turrible about her leaving, too; and I tried to
persuade her she was making a mistake by leaving a house that she knowed
was decent and where she could manage to live within her means. Oh, you
don't know how I felt for days and weeks after she went. I knew how good
she was when she come to this house, and I kept thinking how my Annie
might have been just as foolish and heedless if she'd been throwed
amongst strangers and had the same temptations. I don't know where she
went exactly. She didn't give me much satisfaction about it, and I never
seen her again, till one morning this winter, when I went out to bring
in my ash-cans, I run right into her. It was real early in the morning,
just getting daylight. I always get up at five o'clock winter and
summer, because I'm used to it; and then I've got to, so's to get the
work done, for I can't work fast with my rheumatics. It was hardly light
enough yet for me to recognize her right away, and she did look so
forlorn and pitiful-like walking there so early in the morning in the
snow. It had snowed in the night, and it was the first we'd had this
season. She didn't see me at first. She was walking slow,--real slow and
lingering-like,--like them poor things do. I was standing at the top of
the stairs in the areaway, and her face was turned across the street, as
if she was expecting somebody. I tried to speak to her, but sometimes
something catches me when I'm strong moved and I can't sound a word for
several moments. And that's the way I was struck that morning. I started
to run after her; then I thought better of it, and sort of guessed she'd
turn around at the corner and come back. So I went to the cans and made
believe to be turrible interested in them, and when I looked up, sure
enough she had started back again, and I had caught her eye.

"Thinking of Annie, I bade her the time of day real friendly-like, just
as though everything was all right, and I asked her to come in and have
a bite of breakfast. I'd left the coffee on the stove, and had fried
myself a nice mess of onions. She looked sort of half shamed and half
grateful, and had started to come with me, when all of a sudden she
stopped and said she guessed she couldn't that morning. Then she
strolled off again. I picked up my ash-cans and started down-stairs, but
I wasn't half-way down when