t her curiously.

"Why," she said, "I thought you wore your hair different." And then she
flushed. Her own hair was in a braid, and she flushed still more when,
glancing into a little mirror, she looked from her face to Gloria's. She
had put her own hair down into a braid to be like the girl Dinney had
told of. But how different they were! Instantly she realized that hers
was a face without round, girlish curves. But she did not speak of this.
She turned to Gloria and said in her quiet way:

"You shouldn't take it so hard--Sal's falling. We get used to such
things here." And she smoothed out Hunkie's dress as she sat down on the
window-sill, there being but one chair in the room. "And then when you
come right down to it," she said, "Sal will have the time of her life.
I just came from the hospital. She's bad broke, but they can mend her,
they said. And if she can stand the mending, what a time it will be for
her!"

Gloria's eyes opened wide with astonishment. Rose smiled. It was a smile
that almost made her face look girlish. "It does seem awful to talk that
way, but it's the truth. Just think of it!--Sal never had anything nice
to eat! I saw them bringing a tray to one near Sal, and it held things
Sal never tasted in her life. And she has such a nice room and bed."

"Tell me about Sal, please," said Gloria. "Her mother seemed to feel so
terribly."

Rose's face hardened. "Well, she's probably forgotten her grief by now;
that is, if she's got hold of anything to drink. That's the way she'll
celebrate it. She beat poor Sal regular. You know--" Rose's voice
dropped a little, as though she hated to say what she was going to say,
"Sal isn't just the same as the rest of us. She's always had to lean on
things, and sometimes they break with her."

Gloria shuddered.

"Sal's had lots of breaks; but then everything in this house is sort of
uncertain. The ceiling, for instance. The ceiling in Dinney's room came
down once before his mother died, and it just missed her. It would have
killed her then if it had hit her. It nearly killed Dinney, but he's
tough."

"They will mend the stair railing!" Gloria cried.

Rose's face hardened, and she looked down and pressed her lips against
the baby's forehead. It was as though the girl, Gloria, beside her was
reaching too far. Lifting her head, she said in a cold voice:

"They don't mend things around here. But maybe they will the railing. It
costs money to mend, and they say thing