gner sent him one of his love letters. Rooms over at the
Pages'."

Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lam stew in a book.

"When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me
over, Tillie. And where they'll put him, in that little house--he
looked thin, what I saw of him. Seven pounds and a quarter." This last
referred, not to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.

"Thin as a fiddle-string."

"Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough." Then, rather ashamed of
her unbusinesslike methods: "A thin mealer's a poor advertisement. Do
you suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?"

Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld. In such manner was most of the
Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip
start at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.

"Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond," announced Tillie. "He sent her
a lot of pink roses yesterday."

There was no malice in her flat statement, no envy. Sidney and she,
living in the world of the Street, occupied different spheres. But the
very lifelessness in her voice told how remotely such things touched
her, and thus was tragic. "Mealers" came and went--small clerks, petty
tradesmen, husbands living alone in darkened houses during the summer
hegira of wives. Various and catholic was Tillie's male acquaintance,
but compounded of good fellowship only. Once, years before, romance had
paraded itself before her in the garb of a traveling nurseryman--had
walked by and not come back.

"And Miss Harriet's going into business for herself. She's taken rooms
downtown; she's going to be Madame Something or other."

Now, at last, was Mrs. McKee's attention caught riveted.

"For the love of mercy! At her age! It's downright selfish. If she
raises her prices she can't make my new foulard."

Tillie sat at the table, her faded blue eyes fixed on the back yard,
where her aunt, Mrs. Rosenfeld, was hanging out the week's wash of table
linen.

"I don't know as it's so selfish," she reflected. "We've only got one
life. I guess a body's got the right to live it."

Mrs. McKee eyed her suspiciously, but Tillie's face showed no emotion.

"You don't ever hear of Schwitter, do you?"

"No; I guess she's still living."

Schwitter, the nurseryman, had proved to have a wife in an insane
asylum. That was why Tillie's romance had only paraded itself before her
and had gone by.

"You got out of that luc