ike, and you will do just as you
like, whether or no," she said; "but you are a poor fool. Here you
are getting good wages, and having it all to spend on yourself; and
you ain't overworked, and you'll find out you'll be overworked and
have a whole raft of young ones, and not a cent of wages, except
enough to keep soul and body together, and just enough to wear so you
won't be took up for going round indecent. I've seen enough of such
kind of work."

"Amos will make a real good husband; everybody says he's the best
match anywhere around," replied Hannah, crimson with blushes and half
crying.

Miss Hart sniffed again. "Jump into the fire if you want to," said
she. "I hope you ain't going before fall, and leave me in the lurch
in hot weather, and preserves to be put up."

Hannah said she would not think of getting married before November.
She did not say a word about the white lace gown, but that evening
the desire to look at it again waxed so strong within her that she
could not resist it. She was sitting in her own room, after lighting
the kerosene lamp in the corridor opposite Miss Farrel's room, which
was No. 20, and she was thinking hard about the lace gown, and
wondering how much it cost, when she started suddenly. As she sat
beside her window, her own lamp not yet lit, she had seen a figure
flit past in the misty moonlight, and she was sure it was Miss
Farrel. She reflected quickly that it was Thursday evening, when Miss
Hart always went to prayer-meeting. Hannah had a cold and had stayed
at home, although it was her day off. Miss Hart cherished the belief
that her voice was necessary to sustain the singing at any church
meeting. She had, in her youth, possessed a fine contralto voice. She
possessed only the remnant of one now, but she still sang in the
choir, because nobody had the strength of mind to request her to
resign. Sunday after Sunday she stood in her place and raised her
voice, which was horribly hoarse and hollow, in the sacred tunes, and
people shivered and endured. Miss Hart never missed a Sunday service,
a choir rehearsal, or a Thursday prayer-meeting, and she did not on
that Thursday evening.

Hannah went to her door and listened. She heard laughter down in the
room which had been the bar but was now the office. A cloud of
tobacco smoke floated from there through the corridor. Hannah drew it
in with a sense of delicious peace. Her lover smoked, and somehow the
odor seemed to typify to her domes