ve her. He had only to look at the full tables to
forget. For every nickel that she lost for him, she brought a new
customer. And soon, too, she became at ease with money, and sure of her
subtraction. Linnevitch advanced her sufficient funds to buy a neat
black dress; he insisted that she wear a white turnover collar and white
cuffs. The plain severity of this costume set off the bright coloring
of her face and hair to wonderful advantage. In the dingy, ill-lighted
restaurant she was like that serene, golden, glowing light that
Rembrandt alone has known how to place among shadows. And her temper was
so sweet, and her disposition so childlike and gentle, that one by one
the waitresses who hated her for her popularity and her quick success
forgave her and began to like her. They discussed her a great deal among
themselves, and wondered what would become of her. Something good, they
prophesied; for under all the guilelessness and simplicity she was able.
And you had to look but once into those eyes to know that she was
string-straight. Among the waitresses was no very potent or instructed
imagination. They could not formulate the steps upon which Daisy should
rise, nor name the happy height to which she should ascend. They knew
that she was exceptional; no common pottery like themselves, but of that
fine clay of which even porcelain is made. It was common talk among them
that Linnevitch was in love with her; and, recalling what had been the
event in the case of the Barnhelm girl, and of Lotta Gorski, they knew
that Linnevitch sometimes put pleasure ahead of business. Yet it was
their common belief that the more he pined after Daisy the less she had
to fear from him.

A new look had come into the man's protruding eyes. Either prosperity or
Daisy, or both, had changed him for the better. The place no longer
echoed with thunderous assaults upon slight faults. The words, "If you
will, please, Helena"; "Well, well, pick it up," fell now from his lips,
or the even more reassuring and courteous, "Never mind; I say, never
mind."

Meanwhile, if her position and work in the restaurant were pleasant
enough, Daisy's evenings and nights at home were hard to bear. Her
mother, sick, bitter, and made to work against her will, had no tolerant
words for her. Grandfather Pinnievitch, deprived of even pipe tobacco by
his bibulous son-in-law, whined and complained by the hour. Old Mrs.
Brenda declared that she was being starved to death, and