's and some of the rest of
'em; and I was specially took with them plain gownds them ladies wore
that you interduced me to that day; an' I jest studied on it, and sort
o' calkalated the expense, and then went up to the stores. I wanted a
gray rig, like that Miss Ross had on, but I couldn't get none to fit,
an' the young lady told me 't black was dredful fash'nable now, so I
got this rig; an' 'twas lucky I did ter-day.'

What could she mean by this diversion? I was growing uneasy when she
uttered the last words. 'Yes?' I said feebly.

'I s'pose you wonder what I'm drivin' at?' she queried. 'Well, it's
comin'. Ye see, I was wearin' these clo's, and the goggles, as I call
'em, when I went sa'nterin' past that house; but I hadn't got to it,
nor even to the s'loon yet, when a cab--one of them two-wheeled
things, you know, with the man settin' up behind to drive.'

I nodded.

'Wal, it drove up, an' the man opened the door, right in front of that
house, an' out got a woman; she was bigger than me, and all drest in
black, an' she looked sort of familiar, an' jest as I was wonderin'
who she made me think of, an' she was a-paying the driver, up comes
another cab, tearin', and out hopped two fat, red-faced perlecemen,
an' there was a little squabble like, an' the woman flung herself
round so't I could see her face, an' then I knew her.'

She paused as if for comment, but I was now too much amazed for words.

'I knew her in a minit,' she resumed, 'an' it was that woman that come
stridin' into that rug place in Cayrow Street that day. She hadn't no
long swingin' veil on this time, and she didn't look nigh so big
'longside them big perlecemen. She had give up quiet enough when she
seen she had to; an' they put her into the cab an' drove away, with
t'other one behind 'em. I walked pretty slow, so as not to come right
into the rumpus, an' I thought, as I come acrost the alley, that I see
somethin' a-layin' by the side-walk on the outside. I looked round,
and seein' that every last winder was as dark as black, I stooped down
to look at the things, an' here they air.' And she shook out with one
hand a long black veil which she had drawn from her pocket, and held
out with the other the snake-like speaking-tube.

'I c'n see you're in a hurry,' she said, dropping the veil and tube
into her lap, 'an' I'll git to the pint now, right off. I wa'n't never
no coward, and I jest ached to find out what them fellows was up to.
Mebbe if I'd s