ocher wallpaper, the light oak center-table, the matting on the floor,
and the small tin trunk were of a color. She took up her shoes in one
hand, her coat in the other, and slouched off to a small one-window box
of a room, with an unmade cot and a straight chair two-thirds filling
it.

Happy the biographers whose Desdemonas burrow damask cheeks into silken
pillows, whose Prosperines limp on slim ghost-feet through Lands of
Fancy! Angie limped, too; but in her flat-arched, stockinged feet, and
to an unmade, tousled bed. And all the handmaids of her sex--Love,
Romance, and Beauty--were strangely absent; or could the most sybaritic
of biographers find them out?

Only half undressed she tumbled in, pulled the coverings tight up about
her neck, and turned her face to the wall. Poor Angie! Neither
Prosperine, Desdemona, nor any of the Lauras, Catherines, or Juliets,
had ever sold corsets, faced the soul-racking problem of eight dollars a
week, or been untouched by the golden wand that transforms life into a
phantasmagoria of love.

Tillie spread her little meal on the golden-oak table in the front room.

"Come on, Angie--or if you ain't feeling well I'll bring you in a bite."

"I ain't sick."

"Well, if you ain't sick, for Gawd's sake, where did you get the
grouch?"

"I'm comin' in if you give me time. Where's my wrapper?"

They dined in a desultory sort of way, with Tillie up and down
throughout the meal for a bread-knife, a cup of water, sugar for Angie's
strong coffee.

"If you ain't feelin' good to-night I won't go, Angie."

"I'm feelin' all right--I'm used to sittin' home alone."

"If you talk like that--I won't go, then."

"Sure! You go on! Don't mind me."

"There's another corset sale advertised for to-morrow, ain't there? Gee!
They don't care how many sales they spring on the girls down there, do
they? Didn't you just have your semi-annual clearin'?"

"Yes; but they got a batch of Queenly shapes--two-ninety-eight--they
want to get rid of. They're goin' to discontinue the line and put in the
Straight-Front Flexibles."

Angie sipped her coffee in long draughts. Her black flannel wrapper fell
away at the neck to reveal her unbleached throat, with two knobs for
neck-bones.

"Let the dishes be, Angie--I'll do 'em in the morning. I wonder if it's
raining yet? It's sure too cold to wear my old black. I'll have to wear
my tan."

Rain beat a fine tattoo against the windows. Tillie crossed and peered
a