e called out, "come here!"

"All right, brother John," she answered, and he was sure that he heard
her tittering in a suppressed way. Wondering what could be the cause of
her merriment so early in the day, he called out again. This time she
answered with a rippling laugh: "Wait a minute, can't you?"

Ten minutes passed, and then she appeared in the doorway. She had on a
really attractive blue-serge suit that fitted her quite well. Indeed,
with her hair arranged as Betty McGwire wore hers, she looked like some
strange, new little girl who bore but a slight resemblance to the
unkempt Dora he had known from her babyhood.

"I was going to surprise you," she said, laughing freely over his stare
of astonishment. "It is a dress that was too small for Betty and too big
for Minnie. Mrs. McGwire gave it to me last night while you were out.
She has two or three others which she says will be out of style before
Minnie comes on, and will go to the ragman if I don't take them."

"It looks all right," John said, admiringly. "It will do till we can get
some new ones."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John
fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could
possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city
than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser
on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty.

"Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had
their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near
the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had
been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the
two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and
skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing.

Mr. Reed, the junior member of the firm, was in the main office, a large
square room with two windows, the walls of which were hung with framed
photographs of buildings the firm had constructed and maps of the city's
streets. He was standing at a flat-top desk which was covered with
blue-prints, drawings, and sheets of paper filled with figures and
diagrams, and as John entered he turned and shook hands with him. He had
a broad face, was of middle age, and decidedly bald. He had a cordial
manner, and when he detected, from John's pronunciation, that he was
Southern, he smiled agreeably.