arative freedom from bondage had
not lightened her heart. Her irritability, I told Susan after our
escape, was doubtless due to the fact that she could not share in old
Heinze's intellectual and literary tastes. Susan laughed.

"She wouldn't bother much about that; Birch Street's never lonely, and
it's only a step to the State Street movies. No; I think it's corsets."

Corsets? The word threw a flood of light. I saw at once that it must be
a strain upon any disposition to return after a long and figureless
widowhood to the steel, buckram, and rebellious curves of conventional
married life. I remembered the harnesslike creaking of Mrs. Heinze's
waistline, and forgave her much.

There was really a good deal to forgive. It was neither Susan's fault
nor mine that turned our call into a bad quarter of an hour. I had
looked for a pretty scene as I mounted the stairs behind Susan. I had
pictured the child, in her gay summer frock, bursting like sunshine into
Mrs. Heinze's stuffy quarters--and so forth. Nothing of the kind
occurred.

"Who is ut?" demanded Mrs. Heinze, peering forth. "Oh, it's you--Bob
Blake's girl. What do you want?" Susan explained. "Well, come in then,"
said Mrs. Heinze.

Susan, less daunted than I by her reception, marched in and asked at
once for Jimmy. At the sound of his name Mrs. Heinze's suspicions were
sharply focused. If the gentleman knew anything about Jimmy, all right,
let him say so! It wouldn't surprise her to hear he'd been gettin'
himself into trouble! It would surprise her much more, she implied, if
he had not. But if he had, she couldn't be responsible--nor Heinze
either, the poor man! Jimmy was sixteen--a man grown, you might say. Let
him look after himself, then; and more shame to him for the way he'd
acted!

But what way he had acted, and why, Susan at first found it difficult to
determine.

"Oh!" she at length protested, following cloudy suggestions of evil
courses. "Jimmy couldn't do anything mean! You know he couldn't. It
isn't in him!"

"Isn't ut indeed! Me slavin' for him and the childer ever since Kane was
took off sudden--and not a cint saved for the livin'--let alone the
dead! Slavin' and worritin'--the way you'd think Jimmy'd 'a' jumped wid
joy when Heinze offered! And an easier man not to be found--though he's
got his notions. What man hasn't? If it's not one thing, it's another.
'Except his beer, he don't drink much,' I says to Jimmy; 'and that's
more than I could say