ectable. What have you got to say about that?"

"Nothing much," said Rose. "I am straight and respectable. But I suppose
a woman who wasn't would pretend to be. So you will have to decide about
that for yourself."

"Hmph!" grunted Miss Gibbons. "I don't know why I asked a fool question
like that, unless it's because, like the rest of them, I live in
Centropolis. I know what you are, as well as you do yourself."

The words were brusk, and the inflection of them not much gentler, but
they fell on Rose's heart like rain; like an unexpected warm little
shower out of a brazen sky. She caught her breath, and, to her
consternation, felt her eyes flushing up with tears. She hadn't realized
the tension she had been under, until it was relaxed. She gave a shaky
half-suppressed sob and then made a desperate effort to pull herself
together.

"Now, look here!" said Miss Gibbons, in a tone harder and dryer than
ever. "I'm not going to take you in and pay you wages just because
you're a cat in a strange garret and don't know where to turn. I'm not
even going to do it to spite Harve Granger. But, if you've got any sort
of gumption about hats, I am going to do it, and the rest of this fool
town can say what it likes and do what it pleases. So the thing for you
to do is to quiet down sensibly and show me whether you can trim a hat."

It took Rose a few minutes to carry out the first part of this
injunction. The rush of relief and gratitude and happiness shook her.
Given _carte blanche_ to design a special angel from Heaven to come down
and give her just the comfort and encouragement she wanted, she couldn't
have imagined one so good as Miss Gibbons,--with those keen
straight-looking eyes that had observed her fellow citizens of
Centropolis for the last half-century or so, not in vain; with her
courageous common sense, and with that dry, cool, astringent manner,
which lay with a pleasant healing sting on the lacerations of Rose's
soul.

For a while she just sat still and tried to get the catch out of her
breathing. At last, when she thought she could trust her voice not to
break absurdly, she smiled and said:

"What sort of hat do you want me to trim? I mean, for what sort of
person?"

"What sort of person!" echoed Miss Gibbons and gave Rose a rather keen
look. "Why," she said, after hesitating a moment, "there's a silly old
maid in this town. She ain't more than ten years younger than I am, but
her hair's stayed sort of fluffy