Nancy, a lean doubter, the victim of frustrated nature and business unsuccess, heard in golden wonder. Such assurance! So heartening! After all, whose business was this save her own? Why should she start any one to gabbling? Why not dignify herself and her affairs by reticence? Possibly the good God had seen fit to answer in this way the salt-tinctured appeal she had been clammily venturing in frank disbelief that He really would hear or answer when Marcia appeared. What if He were greater than she had thought? What if He had heard and cared? Such strength! Such energy! So capable! Some one to share the long, lonely hours—— Ask questions that might prove disastrous and spoil things when they were none of her real business? She guessed not! What was that about taking the gifts the gods provided? Who cared a whoop concerning the past of the gosling that had developed into the goose that laid the historical egg? It was the egg that really mattered—the egg! Miss Nancy vibrated; she positively fluttered. Thinking of eggs made her want to cackle, but since it was the golden egg of a goose she craved—how did a goose voice rejoicings on such a momentous achievement? If she quacked, Miss Nancy was quite willing to quack. What she lacked was knowledge, not incentive. All the time the drayman was carrying in furniture and bundles. Marcia opened a dresser drawer and took therefrom a dress, an apron of clean calico, and a pair of easy shoes. Standing in the back room, she stripped off the clothing she was wearing and put these on instead. Nancy was struggling to keep from asking Marcia where she came from, why she had brought furniture before she knew for certain that she would find work, but the lure of the Egg was upon her. She looked at the arms and shoulders and the curves of Marcia’s bust with eyes of frank envy. “My goodness, you are the prettiest thing!” she said. “And your clothes are so tasty.” Marcia smiled quietly, thinking of certain garments she had discarded. “Now, the first thing to do is to arrange this bedroom and kitchen the best we can to accommodate my things,” she said, “then we’ll begin at the front and go straight through. When I’ve gotten everything clean, and in order, then you can tell me about who owes you and where they live and I’ll see what I can collect. And then, we’ll try to arrange the show windows more attractively, and since I can’t make hats, maybe I’d better try them on and sell them, while you go on making them. You really do make beautiful hats, but be as speedy as you can, because I feel it in my bones that I am going to sell lots of them.” Then, with strong arms and assumed assurance, coupled with inborn abhorrence of dirt and disorder, Marcia Peters advanced to the rescue of the Bodkin Millinery.