e dairy bottle, with its metal
top, but Julia saw these things as little as any one else--as little as
she saw the disorderly welter of theatrical effects in the Poveys'
neglected rooms, the paint on the women's faces, the ugly violence and
coarseness of their talk.

But she did see that they were an impulsive, warm-hearted, generous set.
Nobody ever spoke crossly to her, she was given the freedom of their
rooms, she listened to their chatter, she was often caught up for
embraces heavy with cologne; they loved to dress her up in preposterous
costumes, and shouted with laughter at the sight of her in Dolly Varden
bonnets, Scotch kilts, or spectacles and wigs. "Baby doll," "Lovey," and
"Honey Babe" were Julia's names here, and she was a child hungry for
love and eager to earn it. To-night she ate her supper in that silence
so grateful to grown people, and afterward found some stage jewellery
and played with it until her head was too heavy to hold up any longer.
Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts
of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin
pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding
her uncomfortably whenever she stirred.

Julia--all pins and needles--was presently jerked up into a glare of
lights, and tied into the rose-crowned bonnet, and buttoned into the
velvet coat again. She had not been covered as she slept, and sneezed
and shivered in the cold night air. Emeline walked along briskly, and
Julia stumbled beside her. The child was in such an agony of fatigue and
chill that every separate step toward bed was dreaded by this time. She
fell against her mother, as Emeline tore off shoes and stockings,
stretched blundering, blind little arms for her nightgown sleeves, and
sank deliciously against her pillows, already more than half asleep.

But Emeline sat wide eyed, silent, waiting for George.

George did not come home at all that night. On the next
afternoon--Sunday afternoon--Julia was playing in the street with two
other small girls. Their game was simple. The three huddled into the
deep doorway that led to Julia's home, clinging tight to each other,
laughing and shouting. Then at a given signal they rushed screaming
forth, charged across the street as if pursued by a thousand furies, and
took shelter in a similar doorway, next to the saloon across the street.
This performance had been repeated, back and forth, perhaps a dozen
tim