mirror that hung above it,
dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfected the circle of a little
lock of hair that was pasted against her forehead, then began to busy
herself with the slops.

"Well, I must be going--it's getting towards supper time. Make yourself
at home, Mr. Tracy, you'll hear the bell when it's ready."

The landlady took her tranquil departure, without commanding either of
the young people to vacate the room. The young man wondered a little
that a mother who seemed so honest and respectable should be so
thoughtless, and was reaching for his hat, intending to disembarrass the
girl of his presence; but she said:

"Where are you going?"

"Well--nowhere in particular, but as I am only in the way here--"

"Why, who said you were in the way? Sit down--I'll move you when you are
in the way."

She was making the beds, now. He sat down and watched her deft and
diligent performance.

"What gave you that notion? Do you reckon I need a whole room just to
make up a bed or two in?"

"Well no, it wasn't that, exactly. We are away up here in an empty
house, and your mother being gone--"

The girl interrupted him with an amused laugh, and said:

"Nobody to protect me? Bless you, I don't need it. I'm not afraid.
I might be if I was alone, because I do hate ghosts, and I don't deny it.
Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm only just afraid of them."

"How can you be afraid of them if you don't believe in them?"

"Oh, I don't know the how of it--that's too many for me; I only know it's
so. It's the same with Maggie Lee."

"Who is that?"

"One of the boarders; young lady that works in the factry."

"She works in a factory?"

"Yes. Shoe factory."

"In a shoe factory; and you call her a young lady?"

"Why, she's only twenty-two; what should you call her?"

"I wasn't thinking of her age, I was thinking of the title. The fact is,
I came away from England to get away from artificial forms--for
artificial forms suit artificial people only--and here you've got them
too. I'm sorry. I hoped you had only men and women; everybody equal;
no differences in rank."

The girl stopped with a pillow in her teeth and the case spread open
below it, contemplating him from under her brows with a slightly puzzled
expression. She released the pillow and said:

"Why, they are all equal. Where's any difference in rank?"

"If you call a factory girl a young lady, what do you call the
President'