by
the inmates who now called its shelter home, but none from that country
where Angels are supposed to have their being.

"On my word," quoth Miss Bonkowski to the ladies gathered in the room at
her bidding, and Miss Norma gave an eloquent shrug and elevated her
blackened eyebrows as she spoke, "on my word I believe her little heart
would break if she had to stay in dirty, ragged clothes very long. Such
a darling for being washed and curled, such a precious for always
cleaning up! It makes me sure she must be different,"--Miss Norma was
airy but she was also humble, recognizing perhaps her own inherent
shrinking from too frequent an application of soap and water--"she's
something different, born and bred, from such as me!"

But at this the ladies murmured. Miss Bonkowski had been their pride,
their boast, nor did their allegiance falter now, even in the face of
the Angel's claims to superiority.

Miss Bonkowski was not ungrateful for this expression of loyalty, which
she acknowledged with a smile, as she tightened the buckle on the very
high-heeled and coquettish slipper she was rejuvenating, but she
protested, nevertheless, that all this did not alter the fact that the
Angel must be clothed.

"As fer th' dirt," said the energetic Mrs. O'Malligan, on whose ample
lap the Angel was at that moment sitting in smiling friendliness, "sure
an' I'll be afther washin' her handful uv clothes ivery wake, meself,
an' what with them dozens of dresses I'm doin' fer Mrs. Tony's childers
all th' time, it's surely a few she'd be a-givin' me, whin I tell her
about th' darlint, an' me a niver askin' fer nothin' at all, along of
all mine bein' boys. Sure an' I'll be a-beggin' her this very day, I
will, whin I carry me washin' home."

And Mrs. O'Malligan being as good as her word, and Mrs. Tony
successfully interviewed, the good Irish lady returned home in triumph
bearing a large bundle of cast-off garments, and at once summoned the
Tenement to her apartments.

The first arrived ladies were already giving vent to their appreciation
of the Tony generosity when Miss Carew and Miss Bonkowski arrived,
Mary's bony face, in deference to the angelic prejudices now ruling her,
red and smarting from an energetic application of the same soap as
ministered to her room's needs, but beaming with a grim pride as she
bore the radiant Angel, wild with delight at getting out of her narrow
quarters.

Yielding to the popular voice, though not withou