ome question about Mary; and when she turned to Ellen again,
"Why, Ellen Bourne," she said, "you've shaved up every bit of that
cleaning polish and we're most done cleaning."

Ellen was looking at Mis' Winslow: "If you see her," Ellen said, "you
ask her if I can't do anything to help."

Later in the day, happening in at Mis' Mortimer Bates's, Mis' Winslow
found Mis' Moran there before her, and asked what they had heard "about
Mary Chavah." Something in that word "about" pricks curiosity its
sharpest. "Have you heard about Mary Chavah?" "It's too bad about Mary
Chavah." "Isn't it queer about Mary Chavah?"--each of these is like
setting flame to an edge of tissue. Omit "about" from the language, and
you abate most gossip. At Mis' Winslow's phrase, both women's eyebrows
curved to another arc.

Mis' Winslow told them.

"Ain't that nice?" said Mis' Moran, wholeheartedly; "I couldn't bring up
another, not with my back. But I'm glad Mary's going to know what it
is...."

Mis' Mortimer Bates was glad, too, but being by nature a nonconformist,
she took exception.

"It's an awful undertaking for a single-handed woman," she observed.

But this sort of thing she said almost unconsciously, and the other two
women regarded it with no more alarm than any other reflex.

"It's no worse starting single-handed than being left single-handed,"
offered Mis' Winslow somewhat ambiguously. "Lots does that's thrifty."

"Seems as if we could do a little something to help her get ready,
seem's though," Mis' Moran suggested; "I donno what."

"I thought I'd slip over after supper and ask her," Mis' Winslow said;
"maybe I'd best go now--and come back and tell you what she says."

Mis' Winslow found Mary Chavah sitting by her pattern bookcase, cutting
out a pattern. Mary's face was flushed and her eyes were bright, and she
went on with her pattern, thrilled by it as by any other creating.

"I just thought of this," Mary explained, looking vaguely at her
visitor. "It come to me like a flash when I was working on Mis' Bates's
basque. Will you wait just a minute, and then I'll explain it out to
you."

Without invitation, Mis' Winslow laid aside her coat and waited,
watching Mary curiously. She was cutting and folding and pinning her
tissue paper, oblivious of any presence. Alarm, suspense, doubt,
solution, triumph, came and went, and neither woman was conscious that
the flame of creation burned and breathed in the room as truly as if the
p