ling softly and waiting to see what
would happen next. For something surely would happen; it always did
when Mrs. McGregor rolled up her sleeves, and they were rolled up now,
displaying beneath the margin of blue gingham a powerful arm
terminating in a strong hand and slender, capable fingers.

Years ago she had come to Mulberry Court with a large brood of children
and it had been a long time before she could number one friend among
her neighbors. The chief complaint entered against her was that she was
not sociable, and if you were not sociable at Mulberry Court it meant
you were lofty, uppish, considered yourself better than other folks.
What it really meant, however, was that you did not hang out of your
window and chatter to the inhabitant of the opposite tenement; or
loiter in the doorway or on the sidewalk to gossip with the women who
lived on the floors below.

At the outset Mrs. McGregor had let it be understood that she had no
time for gossip and it was this decree that had earned for her the
stigma of not being sociable, the acme of all crimes at Mulberry Court.
Of course she had not proclaimed her policy in so many words. No,
indeed! Yet she might as well have done so for the business-like manner
in which she hastened home from market and shot up the stairs published
her philosophy more forcefully than any words could have done.

"She's just too good for the rest of us," announced Mrs. O'Dowd
sarcastically to the little circle who were wont to await her verdict
on every newcomer to the district. "Proud and snappy and stuck-up, I
call her. Not much of an addition to the house, if you ask my opinion."

This snapshot judgment, hasty as it was, was promptly accepted by the
other women, for was not Julie O'Dowd the social dictator of the
community? Had she ever been known to be wrong? With one accord
Mulberry Court turned its back on the new arrival who so flagrantly
defied the etiquette of the place.

Indeed had not Mrs. O'Dowd's baby fallen ill the seal of disapproval
put on Mrs. McGregor might have rested on her all her days, and she and
her entire family been completely ostracized by the neighborhood. But
little Joey O'Dowd, the youngest of Julie's flock, was seized with
pneumonia, and although the flock was a large one Julie was too genuine
a mother to feel she could spare one out of her fold. Was not Joey the
littlest of all, the pet of her household? All the motherhood in her
revolted at the thought of