And so it was settled, simply. Ma Kromek accepted the decision with dumb passiveness. One of the brothers would bring Jennie's clothes to the Prairie Avenue house. Jennie had only spent half of the stolen hundred. The unspent half she had returned to him. The rest she would pay back, bit by bit, out of her earnings. Winnie Steppler bemoaned her inability to make a feature story of Jennie--Jeannette. Lottie smiled at Jennie, and propelled her down the corridor and into the elevator, to the street. In her well-fitting tailor suit, and her good furs and her close little velvet hat, she looked the Lady Bountiful. The girl, shabby, tear-stained, followed. Lottie was racked with horrid misgivings. Why had she suggested it! What a mad idea! Her mother! She tried to put the thought out of her mind. She couldn't face it. And all the while she was unlocking the door of the electric, settling herself in the seat, holding out a hand to help Jennie's entrance. The watery sunshine of the early morning had been a false promise. It was raining again. Out of the welter of State Street and Wabash, and into the clear stretch of Michigan once more she turned suddenly to look at Jennie and found Jennie looking fixedly at her. Jennie's eyes did not drop shiftily at this unexpected encounter. That was reassuring. "Gussie works at my sister's," she told the girl, bluntly. "That's how I happened to be in court this morning when your case came up." "Oh," said Jennie, accepting this as of a piece with all the rest of the day's happenings. Then, after a moment, "Is that why you said you'd take me? Gussie?" "No, I didn't even think of Gussie at the time. I just thought of you. I didn't even think of myself." She smiled a little grimly. "I'm going to call you Jeannette, shall I?" "Yeh. Jennie's so homely. What's your name?" "Lottie." Jeannette politely made no comment. Lottie found herself defending the name. "It's short for Charlotte, you know. My Aunt Charlotte lives with us. We'd get mixed up. My niece is named Charlotte, too. We call her Charley." Jeannette nodded briskly. "I know. I seen her once. I was at Gussie's. Gussie told me. She's awful pretty.... She's got it swell.... You like my hair this way?" She whisked off the dusty velvet tam. "I think I'd like it better the other way. Long." "I'll let it grow. I can do it in a net so it looks like long." They rode along in silence. What to say to her mother! She glanced at her watch. Eleven. Well, at least she wasn't late. They were turning into Prairie at Sixteenth. She was terrified at what she had done; furious that this should be so. She argued fiercely with herself, maintaining all the while her outwardly composed and dignified demeanour. "Don't be a silly fool. You're a woman of thirty-two--almost thirty-three. You ought to be at the head of your own household. If you were, this is what you'd have done. Well, then!" But she was sick with apprehension, even while she despised herself because it was so.