reat advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 P.M." And she went out,
leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.

Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
would it do to slide over and see?"

"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
and the dinner.

Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
can hardly get to it with a machine."

"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
anyhow."

Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."

The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."

"Miss Franklin will see after it."

"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
to housekeeping--it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
minute!"

This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
each other hear without shouting, and