ain't no use. You got
to put up for the rent, and the wholesalers ain't goin' to let a girl like
me have stock on credit. And there's the fixtures--Aw, well, what's the
use? It's only a dream."

Helen was determined it should not remain "only a dream." But she said
nothing further.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE HAT SHOP

"Them folks you're living with must have had a change of heart, Helen,"
said Sadie Goronsky, as the two girls sallied forth--Sadie with her new
hat set jauntily on her sleek head.

"Why do you say that?"

"If they are willing to spend fourteen dollars on old Lurcher's eyes."

"Oh, it isn't a member of my uncle's family who is furnishing the money
for this charity," Helen replied. Sadie asked no further questions,
fortunately.

It was a very miserable house in which the old man lodged. Helen's heart
ached as she beheld the poverty and misery so evident all about her.
"Lurcher" lived on the top floor at the back--a squalid, badly-lighted
room--and alone.

"But a man with eyes as bad as mine don't really need light, you see,
young ladies," he whispered, when Sadie had ushered herself and Helen into
the room.

He had tried to keep it neat; but his housekeeping arrangements were most
primitive, and cold as the weather had now become, he had no stove save a
one-wick oil stove on which he cooked his meals--such as they were.

"You see," Sadie told him, "this is my friend, Helen, and she seen you the
other day when you--you lost that dollar, you know."

"Ah, yes, wonderful bright eyes you have, Miss, to find a dollar in the
street."

"Ain't they?" cried Sadie, grinning broadly at Helen. "Chee, it ain't
everybody that can pick up money in the streets of New York--though we all
believed we could before we come over here from Russia. Sure!"

"You see," said Helen, softly, "I had seen you before, Mr.--er--Lurcher. I
saw you over on the West Side that morning."

"You saw me over there?" asked the old man, yet still in a very low
voice--a sort of a faded-out voice--and he seemed not a little startled.
"You saw me over there, Miss? _Where_ did you see me?"

"On--on Bleecker Street," responded Helen, which was quite true. She saw
that the man evidently did not wish his visit to Fenwick Grimes to be
known. Perhaps he had some unpleasant connection with the money-lender.

"Yes, yes!" said Lurcher, with relief. "I--I come through there
frequently. But I have such difficulty in seeing my way about, that