her;
then she turned to Mrs. Gibbons.

"We're awful glad we've seen you." Bettina nodded gravely to the
woman on the bed. "And of course we won't tell anybody about Jimmy
not being twelve yet; but Miss Heath wants him to go back to school,
and she's coming to see you soon about it. We've got to go now."

In a manner I could not understand, Bettina, who had gotten up and
was now standing behind Mrs. Gibbons, beckoned to me mysteriously,
and, fearing the latter might become aware of her violent movements,
I, too, got up and shook hands with my hostess.

"I will see you in a few days," I said. "There's no chance for Jimmy
if he doesn't have some education. He ought to go back to school."

"Yes 'm, I know he ought, but he can't go." Jimmy's mother shook
hands, limply. "The pickle-factory where I used to work is turning
off hands every week, and I can't get nothing to do there. I don't
know how to do nothing but pickles. Sometimes I gets a little sewing
at home, but I ain't a sewer. The Charities sends me a basket of
keep-life-in-you groceries every now and then, and the city gives me
some coal and wood when there's enough to go round more than once,
but I need Jimmy's money for the rent."

"If the rent were paid would you let him go back to school?"

"Yes 'm." The dull voice quickened not at all. "I'd be glad to let
him go. I don't want him to work, but them that don't know how it is
can't understand. You-all must come again. Good-by. Come back
here, Rosie. You'll catch your death out there. Good-by."

In the open air, which felt good after the steaming heat of the
bedroom-kitchen, Bettina and I walked for a few moments in silence,
and then, slipping her arm in mine, she looked up at me with wise
little eyes.

"Please excuse me for telling you, Miss Dandridge, but you're new yet
in the places you've been going to since you came to Scarborough
Square, and you'll have to be careful about taking the children on
your lap and in your arms, if they're babies. You love children, and
you just naturally hold out your hands to them, but if you don't know
them very well, you'd better not. All of them ain't healthy, and
hardly any--"

Bettina stopped and, standing still, looked straight ahead of her at
a man and a young woman crossing the street some little distance from
us. Then she looked up at me. The man was Selwyn. The girl with
him was the odd and elfish little creature who had been hurt in
Scarb