d hurried toward Miss Prokes.

"Come on, Tillie!"

"Gee! I was afraid you wouldn't have a umbrella, Angie. What made you so
late? The rest of the corsets have gone long ago."

"Oh, I just stopped a minute to take a milk-and- rose-leaves
bath--they're doin' it in our best families this year."

Tillie glanced at her companion sharply.

"What's the matter, Angie? You ain't had one of your spells again, have
you? Your voice sounds so full of breath and all."

Angie pushed a strand of black-and-white hair up under her nest-like
hat. Her small, black eyes were too far back; and her face was slightly
creased and yellow, like an old college diploma when it is fished out of
the trunk to show the grandchildren.

"I just keeled over like a tenpin--that's all! It came on so
sudden--while I was sellin' a dame a dollar-ninety-eight hipless--that
even old Higgs was scared and went up to the emergency-room with me
hisself."

"Oh, Angie--ain't that a shame, now!"

Tillie linked her arm in the older woman's and, with their joint
umbrella slanted against the fine-ribbed rain, they plunged into the
surge of the street. Wind scudded the rain along the sidewalks; electric
signs, all blurred and streaky through the mist, were dimmed, like
gas-light seen through tears.

"We better ride home to-night, Angie--you with one of your spells, and
this weather and all."

"You must 'a' been clipping your gilt-edge bonds this afternoon instead
of sellin' buttons! It would take more'n only a bad heart and a
rainstorm and a pair of thin soles to make me ride five blocks."

"I--I'll take your turn to-night for fixin' supper. You ain't feelin'
well, Angie--I'll take your turn to-night."

They turned into a high-walled, black, cross-town street. The wind
turned with them and beat javelin-like against their backs and blew
their skirts forward, then shifted and blew against their breathing.

"Gawd!" said the older woman, lowering their umbrella against the
onslaught. "Honest, sometimes I wish I wuz dead and out of it. Whatta we
get out of livin', anyway?"

"Aw, Angie!"

"I do wish it!"

They leaned into the wind.

"I--I don't mind rain much. Me and Mame and George are going to the Gem
to-night--they're showing the airship pictures over there. I ain't goin'
unless you're feelin' all right, though. They've got the swellest
pictures in town over there."

"It's much you care about leavin' me alone or not when you can run round
nights like