up at the back, so that her
"scolding locks" hung down upon her coat-collar, and her home-trimmed
hat rode carelessly on one ear?

All these things were characteristic of Mae Smith, who personified
unsuccessful, anxious middle-age. But there was one thing, she told
herself as she returned Mae Smith's effusive greeting, that never,
never, no matter how sordid her lot became, should there emanate from
her that indefinable odor of poverty--cooking, cabbage, lack of
ventilation, bad air--not if she had to hang her clothing out the window
by a string!

"I've been over to the _Chronicle_ office," Mae Smith chattered. "Left
some fashion notes for the Sunday--good stuff--but I don't know whether
he'll use 'em; that kid that's holdin' down McGennigle's job don't buy
much space. He's got it in for me anyhow. I beat him on a convention
story when he was a cub. I was just goin' down to your office."

"Yes? I'm on the way to the doctor's."

"You don't look well, that's a fact. Sick?"

Helen smiled, faintly. "I do feel miserable. Like every one else I got
a drenching at the Thanksgiving Game."

"That's too bad," Mae Smith murmured absently. What was a cold compared
to the fact that she needed two dollars and a half? "Say, I wonder if I
could get a little loan for a few days? You know I bought this suit on
the installment plan and I'm two weeks behind on it. The collector was
around yesterday and said he'd have to take it back. I can't go around
gettin' fashion notes in my kimono, and the milkman wouldn't leave any
milk until I paid for the last ticket. I'm up against it and I thought
maybe--"

"How much do you want?"

"About two dollars and a half." The tense look faded instantly from Miss
Smith's face.

Helen did not mention, as she laid that amount in her eager hand, that
it was part of the money she had saved to buy a pair of long gloves.

"Thank you"--gaily--"ever so much obliged! I've got a corking idea in my
head for a Sunday special and just as soon as I write it and get paid--"

"No hurry," Helen answered with a quizzical smile, and she watched Mae
Smith clamber joyously on a street car to ride two blocks and spend the
fare that Helen had walked eight blocks to save.

The girl's spirits were low and her face showed depression when she
mounted the broad stone steps of the physician's city office and
residence, but when she came down the look had changed to a kind of
frozen fright.

She had not felt like hersel