The children had evidently been crying. The girl's eyes and nose were red and the boy at intervals gave a dry sob as though he had been through a storm of weeping and could with difficulty stop. They clung to each other as they would had they been drowning. The woman pushed them into the room. The children's clothes were the worse for wear, and untidy. Their faces were dirty and showed signs of grimy little knuckles having been dug into streaming eyes. The eyes of both children were blue, as blue as cornflowers, and their hair very light, the boy's curling in tight rings but the girl's straight and bobbed. "I want to see the manager," said the woman in a well-modulated voice. "Dr. Weston will be here in a few minutes," said Mary Louise. "Won't you sit down?" The young woman sank into a chair. She paid no attention to the children, but Josie found them a seat on a bench by the window. The little girl lifted the boy to the bench and put her arm around his shoulders, drawing him close to her sisterly bosom. "Quite warm today," said Josie to the woman. Mary Louise could with difficulty keep from giggling. It was so foreign to Josie's character to discuss the weather. "Think so?" answered the woman shortly. "Not so warm as it was yesterday, but still a little unseasonable," persisted Josie. "I find a suit quite warm, but then, what is one to wear?" Mary Louise listened in amazement. Josie talking weather and clothes! She had reduced the problem of dress to a science and having done so dismissed the matter from her mind. As for the weather, she had frequently declared that all weather was good if one just accepted it. "Clothes are getting a little cheaper than they were last spring," she chattered on, "almost pre-war prices at Temple & Sweet's this week. Charming georgette blouses for a mere song and shoes at a great bargain if one wears a narrow last." The woman was plainly interested. "Temple & Sweet's?" she murmured, and her glance instinctively fell on her own well-turned arch and narrow toe. Suddenly the little boy's sobs got the better of him and he wept convulsively. His sister hugged him more closely and with the hem of her skirt wiped his eyes. She shook her own tow head and her blue eyes snapped dangerously as the woman said roughly: "Stop your bawling!" "Peter, dear, please!" she whispered, but Peter could not stop. Mary Louise went over and sat on the bench by the children.