people better fed than bred. She thought of the sweet green
fields that she rarely saw nowadays. She thought of the long journey
forth and back that must begin and end her morrow's work, and she
wondered if her employer would think to offer to pay her fare. Then she
pulled herself together. She must think of more agreeable things or she
could not sleep. And as the only agreeable things she had to think about
were her flowers, she looked at the garden on top of the cornice.

A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, and she saw a cylindrical
object that glittered in the twilight, advancing in an irregular and
uncertain manner toward her flower-pots. Looking closer, she saw that it
was a pewter beer-mug, which somebody in the next apartment was pushing
with a two-foot rule. On top of the beer-mug was a piece of paper, and
on this paper was written, in a sprawling, half-formed hand:--

_porter
pleas excuse the libberty And
drink it_

The seamstress started up in terror and shut the window. She remembered
that there was a man in the next apartment. She had seen him on the
stairs on Sundays. He seemed a grave, decent person; but--he must be
drunk. She sat down on her bed all a tremble. Then she reasoned with
herself. The man was drunk, that was all. He probably would not annoy
her further. And if he did, she had only to retreat to Mrs. Mulvaney's
apartment in the rear, and Mr. Mulvaney, who was a highly respectable
man and worked in a boiler-shop, would protect her. So, being a poor
woman who had already had occasion to excuse--and refuse--two or three
"libberties" of like sort, she made up her mind to go to bed like a
reasonable seamstress, and she did. She was rewarded, for when her light
was out, she could see in the moonlight that the two-foot rule appeared
again with one joint bent back, hitched itself into the mug-handle, and
withdrew the mug.

The next day was a hard one for the little seamstress, and she hardly
thought of the affair of the night before until the same hour had come
around again, and she sat once more by her window. Then she smiled at
the remembrance. "Poor fellow," she said in her charitable heart, "I've
no doubt he's _awfully_ ashamed of it now. Perhaps he was never tipsy
before. Perhaps he didn't know there was a lone woman in here to be
frightened."

Just then she heard a gritting sound. She looked down. The pewter pot
was in front of her, and the two-foot rule was slowly reti