p-and-coin man who
occupied the first floor, lived with his wife and baby in the rear. The
janitress had a room on the floor above hers. Two elderly women workers
of ability in the mechanical arts occupied the rear of her floor, and
a dear little fat woman of fifty who drew designs for the New England
weavers of cotton goods lived in the room adjoining hers.

She had never spoken to any of these people, but Ella, the janitress,
who cleaned up her place every morning, had told her their history.
Ella was a sociable soul, her face an eternal study and an inscrutable
mystery. She spoke both German and English and yet never a word of her
own life's history passed her lips. She had loved Mary from the moment
she cocked her queer drawn face to one side and looked at her with the
one good eye she possessed. She was always doing little things for her
comfort--and never asked tips for it. If Mary offered to pay she smiled
quietly and spoke in the softest drawl: "Oh, that's nothing, child--Ach,
Gott im Himmel--nein!"

This one-eyed, homely woman who cleaned up her room for three dollars
a month, and Jane Anderson, were the only friends she had among the six
million people whose lives centered on Manhattan Island.

Man had yet to darken her door. The little room had been carefully
fitted, however, to receive her Knight when the great event of his
coming should be at hand.

The box couch was built of hard wood paneling and was covered with
pillows of soft leather and silk. The bed-clothes were carefully stored
in the locker beneath the mattress cushion. No one would ever suspect
its use as a bed. The bathroom was fitted with a bureau and no signs of
a sleeping apartment disfigured the effect of her one library, parlor,
and reception-room. A desk and bookcase stood at either end of the box
couch. The bookcase was filled with fiction--love stories exclusively.

A large birdcage swung from a staple in the window and two canaries
peered cautiously from their perches at the kitten in her lap. She had
trained him to ignore this cage.

The crowds below were thinning down. A light snow was falling. The girl
lifted her pet and kissed his cold nose.

"We must get our own dinner tonight, Mr. Thomascat--it's snowing
outside. And did you hear what she said, Kitty dear--`More girls are
ruined by marriage in New York than by any other process!' A good joke,
Kitty!--You and I know better than that if we do live in our own tiny
world! We'll