foul landing. She sank
against the door, beating passionately at the panels. It was opened from
within; she had just strength enough to clutch the door-post so as not
to fall. A thin, careworn woman swam uncertainly before her eyes. Esther
could not recognize her, but the plain iron bed, almost corresponding in
area with that of the room, was as of old, and so was the little round
table with a tea-pot and a cup and saucer, and half a loaf standing out
amid a litter of sewing, as if the owner had been interrupted in the
middle of breakfast. Stay--what was that journal resting against the
half-loaf as for perusal during the meal? Was it not the _London
Journal_? Again she looked, but with more confidence, at the woman's
face. A wave of curiosity, of astonishment at the stylishly dressed
visitor, passed over it, but in the curves of the mouth, in the movement
of the eyebrows, Esther renewed indescribably subtle memories.

"Debby!" she cried hysterically. A great flood of joy swamped her soul.
She was not alone in the world, after all! Dutch Debby uttered a little
startled scream. "I've come back, Debby, I've come back," and the next
moment the brilliant girl-graduate fell fainting into the seamstress's
arms.

CHAPTER XII.

A SHEAF OF SEQUELS.

Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly and drinking tea out of
Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no spare
cup, but she had a spare chair without a back, and Esther was of course
seated on the other. Her bonnet and cloak were on the bed.

"And where is Bobby?" inquired the young lady visitor.

Debby's joyous face clouded.

"Bobby is dead," she said softly. "He died four years ago, come next
_Shevuos_."

"I'm so sorry," said Esther, pausing in her tea-drinking with a pang of
genuine emotion. "At first I was afraid of him, but that was before I
knew him."

"There never beat a kinder heart on God's earth," said Debby,
emphatically. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

Esther had often seen him snapping at flies, but she could not smile.

"I buried him secretly in the back yard," Debby confessed. "See! there,
where the paving stone is loose."

Esther gratified her by looking through the little back window into the
sloppy enclosure where washing hung. She noticed a cat sauntering
quietly over the spot without any of the satisfaction it might have felt
had it known it was walking over the grave of an hereditary enemy.

"So I don't feel as