stir them up and set them going again like old
memories.

The stairs were bare and worn by many feet, and not particularly clean.
Betty paused in dismay then hurried on after her hostess, who was
mounting up, one, two, three flights, to a tiny hall bedroom at the
back. A fleeting fear that perhaps the place was not respectable shot
through her heart, but her other troubles were so great that it found no
lodgment. Panting and trembling she arrived at the top and stood looking
about her in the dark, while the other girl found a match and lighted
another wicked little flickering gas-burner.

Then her hostess drew her into the room and closed and locked the door.
As a further precaution she climbed upon a chair and pushed the transom
shut.

"Now," she said with a sigh of evident relief, "we're safe! No one can
hear you here, and you can say what you please. But first we'll get this
coat and hat off and see what's the damage."

As gently as if she were undressing a baby the girl removed the hat and
coat from her guest, and shook out the wonderful shining folds of satin.
It would have been a study for an artist to have watched her face as she
worked, smoothing out wrinkles, shaking the lace down and uncrushing it,
straightening a bruised orange-blossom, and putting everything in place.
It was as if she herself were an artist restoring a great masterpiece,
so silently and absorbedly she worked, her eyes full of a glad wonder
that it had come to her once to be near and handle anything so rare and
costly. The very touch of the lace and satin evidently thrilled her; the
breath of the exotic blossoms was nectar as she drew it in.

Betty was still panting from her climb, still trembling from her flight,
and she stood obedient and meek while the other girl pulled and shook
and brushed and patted her into shape again. When all was orderly and
adjusted about the crumpled bride, the girl stood back as far as the
limits of the tiny room allowed and surveyed the finished picture.

"There now! You certainly do look great! That there band of flowers
round your forehead makes you look like some queen. 'Coronet'--ain't
that what they call it? I read that once in a story at the Public
Library. Say! Just to think I should pick that up in the street! Good
night! I'm glad I came along just then instead o' somebody else! This
certainly is some picnic! Well, now, give us your dope. It must've been
pretty stiff to make you cut and run from a