soul for all femininity in need, hurried to
her aid with some pins gathered from the lapel of his gingham coat.
Little Marie, with a coquettish shake of her head and a blush and
smile began repairing the damage.

"It is the cloth that is easy broke," explained she, when she lifted
her suffused but still smiling face, "and I a new one will have when
I haf my money, my vage." With that Marie was gone, her poor gown
scalloping around her heavy, backward heels, her smiling glance of
artless coquetry over her shoulder to the last, and the boy and the
old clerk looked at each other. The boy whistled.

Just then the delivery-wagon drove up in front of the store. The
driver, who was a young fellow in the first stages of pulmonary
consumption, got down with weakly alacrity from the seat and came in
to get the new orders. He coughed as he entered, but he looked
radiant. He was driving the delivery-wagon in the hope of recovering
his health by out-of-door life, and he was, or flattered himself that
he was, perceptibly gaining.

"Where's the next delivery?" he inquired, hoarsely.

"Wait a minute," said the old clerk, and again invaded the office.

"They 'ain't paid their hired girl," he said, in a whisper. "Had we
better--"

"Better what?" said Anderson, impatiently, though he looked confused.

"Better send them things to the Carrolls'?"

"Didn't I tell you? What--"

"Oh, all right, sir," said the clerk, and retreated hastily. At times
he had an awe of his employer.

"Goin' to take all that truck to the Carrolls'?" inquired the
consumptive deliverer.

"Yep," replied the boy, lugging out the flour-bag.

"Credit," whispered the man.

The boy nodded.

The man essayed a whistle, but he coughed. "Well, it's none of my
funeral," he declared, when he got his breath, "but I hear he's a
dead-beat. I s'pose he knows what he is about."

"If he don't, nobody is goin' to tell him, you bet," said the boy,
succinctly.

"Well, it's none of my funeral," said the man, and he coughed again,
and gathered up the reins, and drove away in a cloud of dust down the
street. It had not rained for two weeks and the roads gave evidence
of it.

Anderson, back in his office, heard the sound of the retreating
wheels with a feeling of annoyance, even scorn of himself for his
gullibility, and his stress upon the financial part of the affair.

He was losing a good deal of money, and he did not wish to do so. "I
am a fool," he told himself, w