tal-like skin,
unrelieved by moisture, was alternately hot and cold.

The low-ceiled room, dark except for a reflected slant of yellow
gas-light coming in from the kitchen, closed down like an inverted bowl.
She went to the window.

On the fire-escape opposite, the child still slept, one little ghost of
a bare foot extending over the rail. As she watched, a woman's voice
from within the apartment cried out sharply--a panicky cry filled with
terror; then a silence--more pregnant than the call itself. Lily knew,
with a dull tugging at her heartstrings, that the babe had died. Only a
week before she and Charley had seen a little life snuffed out in the
apartment above, and she knew the mother-cry. Charley had dressed the
child and cried hot, unashamed tears; then, as now, her own eyes were
dry, but her throat ached.

East Side tradition has it that every tenth year exacts the largest
share of human toil--this might have been Death's Oberammergau!

Trembling, Lilly turned and groped her way into the little bedroom;
drawers slid open and slammed shut, tissue-paper rattled, the hasps of a
trunk snapped; then came the harsh sing of water pouring from a faucet.
Presently she reappeared in the doorway in a fresh white blouse and a
dark-blue skirt; there were pink cotton rosebuds on her hat and a long
pair of white silk gloves dangling from one hand. In the other she
carried a light wicker hand-satchel.

By the shaft of light she reread the small square of yellow paper and
impaled it carefully, face up, on the pincushion of their little
dressing-table. It poised like a conspicuous butterfly. Then she went
out into the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, placed it beside a small
cake of ice in a correspondingly small refrigerator, turned off the
gas-light, and went out of the apartment without once glancing behind
her.

* * * * *

Miss Lulu Tracy lived in a lower West Side rooming-house. Lily had once
dwelt in that same dingy-fronted building, in a room which, like her
friend's, was reduced to its lowest terms. The familiar cryptic
atmosphere met her as she crossed the threshold. Loo greeted her
effusively.

"Lordy, Lil, I was afraid you was gettin' cold feet! Sit right down
there on the trunk till I get some of this cold-cream off. I'm ready to
drop in my tracks, I am. Three of the lace-girls fainted to-day and had
to be took home. Ain't this room awful?"

Lilly sank in a little heap on the