not so. He leaves to a society. There are many. And
they pay the women, and sometimes the men, to give away the money----"

"Santo Cristo," gasped Luigi, "they pay to give away the money?"

"For them it is a job like any other. Didst think it was for love of
thee or the red curls of thy Vincenza?"

"Marvelous, most marvelous," murmured Luigi, "and it is possible then
for all people to get----"

"Ma, that no one can explain," and Biaggio shrugged his shoulders; in a
gesture of absolute inability to solve the problem.

"She will come then again, this lady?" Luigi leaned forward eagerly. He
was beginning to grasp it.

"It is for thee to say stop, my son, if thou hast in thy head anything
but fat. But thou art a Genovese. Only I say," Biaggio laid a grimy
thumb across his lips and winked knowingly--"Tell to none."

"Thanks, many thanks friend," Luigi's voice was deeply grateful,
"perhaps some day I can do for thee----?"

"It is nothing--nothing," insisted Biaggio, patting the air with his
pudgy hands in a gesture of denial, "a little kindness between friends."

At great inconvenience to himself, Biaggio held the door open to give
Luigi more light in crossing the street. As he closed it and turned out
the gas, he smiled to himself. "And each bottle of oil will cost thee
ten cents more, friend. Business is business, and yesterday thy Vincenza
returned the carrots because they were not fresh. Ecco!"

Back in his own room, Luigi folded the three notes neatly, while
Vincenza watched him, her gray eyes wide with wonder.

"Marvelous, marvelous," she whispered just as Luigi had done, "to-night
I thank the Virgin."

As Biaggio had foretold, the Lady in Fur came every day. Luigi did not
understand all that she said, but he always listened politely and
smiled, with his dark eyes and his lips and his glistening white teeth.
It made her feel very old to see Luigi smile like that, when he had to
live in one room with a leaking water pipe and a garbage can outside the
door. Sometimes she was almost ashamed to offer the three dollars, and
she was grateful for the gentle, sweet way Luigi accepted it.

Then one day when the air was thick with snow, and the air in the
tenement halls cut like needles of ice and the lamps had to be lit at
two o'clock, the Lady in Brown Fur came unexpectedly. She had found work
for Luigi. She kissed the Little One, patted Vincenza's shoulder and
shook hands with Luigi. Again and again she made him