our share of bad times, same as the rest
of us. And look at me now. I've done sick nursing for more'n fifty
years--as far back as I like to look--but it ain't all been sick
nursing. There's been a deal in it besides.

"Naw'm, I've got a lot to be thankful for when I begin to take stock."
Her wrinkled face caught the first gleam of sunlight that fell through
the unwashed window panes. "I've done sick nursing ever since I was a
child almost; but I've managed mighty well all things considering, and
I've saved up enough to keep me out of the poor house when I get too old
to go on. When I give up I won't have to depend on charity, and the city
won't have to bury me either when I'm dead. And I've got a heap of
satisfaction out of my red geraniums too. I don't reckon you ever saw
finer blooms--not even in a greenhouse. Naw'm, I ain't been the
complaining sort. I've got a lot to be thankful for, and I know it."

Her old eyes shone; her sunken mouth was trembling, not with self-pity,
Corinna realized, with a pang that was strangely like terror, but with
the courage of living. The pathos of it appeared intolerable for a
moment; and gathering her cloak about her, Corinna felt that she must
cover her eyes and fly before she broke out into hysterical screaming.
Then the terror passed; and she saw, in a single piercing flash of
insight, that what she had mistaken for ugliness was simply an
impalpable manifestation of beauty. Beauty! Why it was everywhere! It
was with her now in this squalid house, in the presence of this crippled
old woman, unmoved by death, inured to poverty, screwing, grinding,
pinching, like flint to the crying baby, and yet cherishing the blooms
of her red geranium, her passionate horror of the poor house, and her
dream of six feet of free earth not paid for by charity at the end. Yes,
that was the way of life. Blind as a mole to the universe, and yet
visited by flashes of unearthly light.

"Thank you," said Corinna hurriedly. "I must go down. I must get a
breath of air, but I will come back in a little while." Then she started
at a run down the stairs, while the old woman gazed after her, as if the
flying figure, in the cloak of peacock-blue satin and white fur, was
that of a demented creature. "Air!" she repeated, with scornful
independence. "Air!", and turning away in disgust, she limped painfully
back to wait outside of the closed door. Here, when she had seated
herself in a sagging chair, she lifted her bl