ak to her in the hallways she
shrank from him in both fear and indignation. But her rebuffs did not
lessen by one ray the smiling amicability of his bland countenance
He tried to become confidential, tried to press toward intimacy; one
evening he even had the unbelievable audacity to ask if he might call
upon her! She flamed with the desire to destroy him with a look,
a word; Mrs. De Peyster knew well how thus to snuff out presuming
upstarts. But caution warned her that she dared not unloose her
powers. So she merely turned and fled, choking.

But the reverend gentleman's unperturbed overtures continued.

Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda did not speak of money at first; but
it was constantly in both their minds as a problem of foremost
importance. Their failure to buy fresh outfits, as they had told Mrs.
Gilbert they intended doing, thus supplying "baggage" that would be
security for their board, caused Mrs. Gilbert to regard them with
hostile suspicion. Matilda saw eviction in their landlady's penciled
eyes, and without a word as to her intention to Mrs. De Peyster, she
slipped out on the third day, returned minus her two rings, and handed
Mrs. Gilbert ten dollars.

They were secure to the week's end. After that--?

Fitfully Mrs. De Peyster pondered this matter of finances. She had
money so near, yet utterly unreachable. Her house was filled with
negotiable wealth, but she dared not go near it. Judge Harvey would
secure her money gladly; but if the previous Friday she could not
accept his aid, then a thousand times less could she accept it now. To
ask his aid would be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but
the series of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper
and deeper. That humiliation was unthinkable.

But on Thursday, locked in their room, they spoke of the matter
openly.

"Please, ma'am," said Matilda, who had been maturing a plan, "you
might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you sailed, and
I could get it cashed. They'd think it was for back wages."

"I told you last Friday, when everything happened, that I had drawn
out my balance."

"But your bank won't mind your overdrawing for a hundred or two,"
urged Matilda.

"That," said Mrs. De Peyster with an air of noble principle, "is a
thing I will not do."

Matilda knew nothing of the secret of Mrs. De Peyster's exhausted
credit at her bank.

"My own money," Matilda remarked plaintively, "is all in a savings
bank. I h