He did not reply, nor would she have heard him had he spoken, for in the stream of lesser guests now flowing from the rear of the church, which had been assigned to them, she was met by Katie Flanagan. Not the piquant Katie of that photograph which used to adorn the bureau in the shabby tenement of bachelor Hermann Hoffmann, or the saucy girl of the second-hand clothing-store, or yet the frightened clerk that had at first evaded and at last defied the whiskered Mr. Porter. Those days were patently passed; Katie, like many another strong soul, had faced temptation and conquered it; and in the stead of the old days had come new days that brought a maturity and a dignity with which Katie was consciously satisfied. Her blue eyes were as glad as Mary remembered them, but their happiness was calm; her black hair was gathered in a formal knot, and her gown, though a better gown than that she used to wear, was of a simplicity almost severe. Nevertheless, when she saw Mary, who sought evasion, Katie came frankly forward with outstretched hand. She recognized with regret, the change in her former acquaintance, but, knowing, as she must have known, its cause, she decided to ask no questions concerning it, and, if she offered no assistance, she at least proffered no advice. "I just come to see the last o' Miss Marian," she explained. "Near the half of old Rivington Street's been tucked in here among th' swells to give the good word to her--Jews an' Irish--an' if the rabbis won't mind for the sheenies to come to such a heathen church, I thought Father Kelly might manage to forgive me." Mary's brain was just then too dull to make any but a commonplace answer. "You're lookin' well," she said. "I ought to be, though there's a youngster expected. I tell Hermann--we was married a few weeks after last election--I don't know how we'll keep a family; but he just whistles an' says we'll make out some way, an' I guess we will." "I'm glad," said Mary, "that you're married." "Well, so am I--most of the time. Of course, the man has some queer ideas, but I'm doin' me best, with Father Kelly's help, to get 'em out of the head of him, an' nowadays, when he goes to one of them Socialist meetin's by night, I make him make up by goin' with me to early mass next mornin'." She paused and surveyed again the pale woman before her. Essentially Katie had not changed. She had still, and would always have, the big, kind heart and the ready hand of her earlier days. But her condition had altered, and Mary's had evidently again fallen; she looked through an alien atmosphere, and her gaze was distant: the responsibilities and adjustment of young married life shackled her, and must continue to shackle her until they were no longer new. She did not know how to suggest any assistance, did not even believe that it was desired; but, though she still felt that she must refrain from intimate inquiry, one effort she tried to make.