he more winning when no words marred the involuntary
homage women love.

These thoughts were busy in Rose's mind as she sat looking at the lovely
silk and wondering what Charlie would say if she should some night burst
upon him in a pale rosy cloud, like the Aurora to whom he often likened
her. She knew it would please him very much and she longed to do all she
honestly could to gratify the poor fellow, for her tender heart already
felt some remorseful pangs, remembering how severe she had been the
night before. She could not revoke her words, because she meant them
every one, but she might be kind and show that she did not wholly shut
him out from her regard by asking him to go with her to Kitty's ball
and gratify his artistic taste by a lovely costume. A very girlish but
kindly plan, for that ball was to be the last of her frivolities, so
she wanted it to be a pleasant one and felt that "being friends" with
Charlie would add much to her enjoyment.

This idea made her fingers tighten on the gleaming fabric so temptingly
upheld, and she was about to take it when, "If ye please, sir, would
ye kindly tell me where I'd be finding the flannel place?" said a voice
behind her, and, glancing up, she saw a meek little Irishwoman looking
quite lost and out of place among the luxuries around her.

"Downstairs, turn to the left," was the clerk's hasty reply, with a
vague wave of the hand which left the inquirer more in the dark than
ever.

Rose saw the woman's perplexity and said kindly, "I'll show you this
way."

"I'm ashamed to be throublin' ye, miss, but it's strange I am in it, and
wouldn't be comin' here at all, at all, barrin' they tould me I'd get
the bit I'm wantin' chaper in this big shop than the little ones more
becomin' the like o' me," explained the little woman humbly.

Rose looked again as she led the way through a well-dressed crowd of
busy shoppers, and something in the anxious, tired face under the old
woolen hood the bare, purple hands holding fast a meager wallet and a
faded scrap of the dotted flannel little children's frocks are so often
made of touched the generous heart that never could see want without
an impulse to relieve it. She had meant only to point the way, but,
following a new impulse, she went on, listening to the poor soul's
motherly prattle about "me baby" and the "throuble" it was to "find
clothes for the growin' childer when me man is out av work and the
bit and sup inconvaynient these