"Oh!" she cried. "Ain't I the limit? That--that bow was on, and I forgot--me wearin' a red bow on poor Angie's funeral day! Me--oh--" Her fingers fumbled at the bow, and smarting tears stung her eyes. But Mr. Lux stepped to the blue-glass vase on the table, snapped a white carnation at the neck, and stuck it in his left coat-lapel; then he tore off a bit of fern and added it as a lacy background. His deep-set eyes were as mellow as sunlight. "Hello!" he whispered, extending both hands and smiling at her until all his teeth showed. "Hello!" "Hello!" she said, like one in a dream. [Illustration: "HELLO!" HE WHISPERED, EXTENDING BOTH HANDS AND SMILING AT HER UNTIL ALL HIS TEETH SHOWED] THE SQUALL Lilly raised the gas-flame beneath the coffee-pot and poked with a large three-pronged fork at the snapping chops in the skillet. The spark-spark of frying and the purl of boiling water grew madder and merrier, and a haze of blue smoke and steam rose from the little stove. "I don't see why you can't stay for supper, Loo." Miss Lulu Tracy opened her arms wide--like Juliet greeting the lark--and yawned. "What's the use stickin' round?" she said, in gapey tones. "What's the use stickin' round where I ain't wanted? Charley ain't got no use for me, and you know it. I'll go over to the room and wait for you." "Well, I like that! I guess I can have who I want in my own flat; he isn't bossin' me round--let me tell you that much." But she did not urge further. "Oh, my feelin's ain't hurt, Lil. I jest dropped in on my way home from the store to see how things was comin' with you." Lilly banged the little oven door shut with the toe of her shoe and, holding her brown-checked apron against her hand for protection, drained hot water from off a pan of jacketed potatoes--a billow of steam mounted to the ceiling, enveloping her. "I've made up my mind, Loo. There's a whole lot of sense in what you've been saying--an' I'm going to do it." "Now remember, Lil, I ain't buttin' in--I ain't the kind that butts into other people's business; but, when you come down to the store the other day and I seen how blue you was I got to talkin' before I meant to. That's the way with me when I get to feelin' sorry for anybody; I ain't always understood." "You're just right in everything you said. It ain't like I was a girl that wasn't used to anything. If I do say so myself, there never was a more popular girl in the gloves than I was--you know what refined and genteel friends I had, Loo." "That's what I always say--some girls could put up with this all right; but a person that had the swell time an' friends you did--to marry an' have to settle down like this--it just don't seem right. I always said, the whole time we was chumming together, you was cut out for a society life if ever a girl was. Of course, I ain't saying nothing against Charley, but no fellow can expect a girl like you to stick to this."