It was on the following day that a less important member of society than Miss Minster resolved to also pay a visit to the milliner’s shop.

Ben Lawton’s second wife—for she herself scarcely thought of “Mrs. Lawton” as a title appertaining to her condition of ill-requited servitude—had become possessed of some new clothes. Their monetary value was not large, but they were warm and respectable, with bugle trimming on the cloak, and a feather rising out of real velvet on the bonnet; and they were new all together at the same time, a fact which impressed her mind by its novelty even more than did the inherent charm of acquisition.

To go out in this splendid apparel was an obvious duty. Where to go was less clear. The notion of going shopping loomed in the background of Mrs. Lawton’s thoughts for a while, but in a formless and indistinct way, and then disappeared again. Her mind was not civilized enough to assimilate the idea of loitering around among the stores when she had no money with which to buy anything.

Gradually the conception of a visit to her step-Jessica took shape in her imagination.

Perhaps the fact that she owed her new clothes to the bounty of this girl helped forward this decision. There was also a certain curiosity to see the child who was Ben’s grandson, and so indirectly related to her, and for whose anomalous existence there was more than one precedent in her own family, and who might turn out to resemble her own little lost Alonzo. But the consideration which primarily dictated her choice was that there was no other place to go to.

Her reception by Jessica, when she finally found her way by Samantha’s complicated directions to the shop, was satisfactorily cordial. She was allowed to linger for a time in the show-room, and satiate bewilderment over the rich plumes, and multi-colored velvets and ribbons there displayed; then she was taken into the domestic part of the building, where she was asked like a real visitor to take off her cloak and bonnet, and sat down to enjoy the unheard-of luxury of seeing somebody else getting a “meal of victuals” ready. The child was playing by himself back of the stove with some blocks. He seemed to take no interest in his new relation, and Mrs. Lawton saw that if Alonzo had lived he would not have looked like this boy, who was blonde and delicate, with serious eyes and flaxen curls, and a high, rather protuberant forehead.

The brevet grandmother heard with surprise from Lucinda that this five-year-old child already knew most of his letters. She stole furtive glances at him after this, from time to time, and as soon as Jessica had gone out into the store and closed the door she asked:

“Don’t his head look to you like water on the brain?”

Lucinda shook her head emphatically: “He’s healthy enough,” she said.

“And his name’s Horace, you say?”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” replied the girl.

Mrs. Lawton burned to ask what other name the lad bore, but the peremptory tones of her daughter warned her off. Instead she remarked: “And so he’s been livin’ in Tecumseh all this while? They seem to have brung him up pretty good—teachin’ him his A B C’s and curlin’ his hair.”

“He had a good home. Jess paid high, and the people took a liking to him,” said Lucinda.

“I s’pose they died or broke up housekeepin’,” tentatively suggested Mrs. Lawton.

“No: Jess wanted him here, or thought she did.” Lucinda’s loyalty to her sister prompted her to stop the explanation at this. But she herself had been sorely puzzled and tried by the change which had come over the little household since the night of the boy’s arrival, and the temptation to put something of this into words was too strong to be mastered.

“I wish myself he hadn’t come at all,” she continued from the table where she was at work. “Not but that he’s a good enough young-one, and lots of company for us both, but Jess ain’t been herself at all since she brought him here. It ain’t his fault—poor little chap—but she fetched him from Tecumseh on account of something special; and then that something didn’t seem to come off, and she’s as blue as a whetstone about it, and that makes everything blue. And there we are!”

Lucinda finished in a sigh, and proceeded to rub grease on the inside of her cake tins with a gloomy air.

In the outer shop, Jessica found herself standing surprised and silent before the sudden apparition of a visitor whom she had least of all expected—Miss Kate Minster.

The bell which formerly jangled when the street door opened had been taken off because it interfered with the child’s mid-day sleep, and Jessica herself had been so deeply lost in a brown study where she sat sewing behind the counter that she had not noted the entrance of the young lady until she stood almost within touch. Then she rose hurriedly, and stood confused and tongue-tied, her work in hand. She dropped this impediment when Miss Minster offered to shake hands with her, but even this friendly greeting did not serve to restore her self-command or induce a smile.

“I have a thousand apologies to make for leaving you alone all this while,” said Kate. “But—we have been so troubled of late—and, selfish like, I have forgotten everything else. Or no—I won’t say that—for I have thought a great deal about you and your work. And now you must tell me all about both.”

Miss Minster had seated herself as she spoke, and loosened the boa about her throat, but Jessica remained standing. She idly noted that no equipage and coachman were in waiting outside, and let the comment drift to her tongue. “You walked, I see,” she said.

“Yes,” replied Kate. “It isn’t pleasant to take out the horses now. The streets are full of men out of work, and they blame us for it, and to see us drive about seems to make them angry. I suppose it’s a natural enough feeling; but the boys pelted our coachman with snowballs the other day, while my sister and I were driving, and the men on the corner all laughed and encouraged them. But if I walk nobody molests me.”

The young lady, as she said this with an air of modest courage, had never looked so beautiful before in Jessica’s eyes, or appealed so powerfully to her liking and admiration. But the milliner was conscious of an invasion of other and rival feelings which kept her face smileless and hardened the tone of her voice.

“Yes, the men feel very bitterly,” she said. “I know that from the girls. A good many of them—pretty nearly all, for that matter—have stopped coming here, since the lockout, because your money furnished the Resting House. That shows how strong the feeling is.”

“You amaze me!”

There was no pretence in Miss Kate’s emotion. She looked at Jessica with wide-open eyes, and the astonishment in the gaze visibly softened and saddened into genuine pain. “Oh, I am so sorry!” she said. “I never thought of that. Tell me—what can be done? How can we get that cruel notion out of their heads? I did so truly want to help the girls. Surely there must be some way of making them realize this. The closing of the works, that is a business matter with which I had nothing to do, and which I didn’t approve; but this plan of yours, that was really a pet of mine. It is only by a stupid accident that I did not come here often, and get to know the girls, and show them how interested I was in everything. When Mr. Tracy spoke of you yesterday, I resolved to come at once, and tell you how ashamed I was.”

Jessica’s heart was deeply stirred by this speech, and filled with yearnings of tenderness toward the beautiful and good patrician. But some strange, undefined force in her mind held all this softness in subjection.

“The girls are gone,” she said, almost coldly. “They will not come back—at least for a long time, until all this trouble is forgotten.”

“They hate me too much,” groaned Kate, in grieved self-abasement.

“They don’t know you! What they think of is that it is the Minster money; that is what they hate. To take away from the men with a shovel, and give back to the girls with a spoon—they won’t stand that!” The latent class-feeling of a factory town flamed up in Jessica’s bosom, intolerant and vengeful, as she listened to her own words. “I would feel like that myself, if I were in their place,” she said, in curt conclusion.

The daughter of the millions sat for a little in pained irresolution. She was conscious of impulses toward anger at the coldness, almost the rudeness, of this girl whom she had gone far out of and beneath her way to assist. Her own class-feeling, too, subtly prompted her to dismiss with contempt the thought of these thick-fingered, uncouth factory-girls who were rejecting her well-meant bounty. But kindlier feelings strove within her mind, too, and kept her for the moment undecided.

She looked up at Jessica, as if in search for help, and her woman’s heart suddenly told her that the changes in the girl’s face, vaguely apparent to her before, were the badges of grief and unrest. All the annoyance she had been nursing fled on the instant. Her eyes moistened, and she laid her hand softly on the other’s arm.

“You at least mustn’t think harshly of me,” she said with a smile. “That would be too sad. I would give a great deal if the furnaces could be opened to-morrow—if they had never been shut. Not even the girls whose people are out of work feel more deeply about the thing than I do. But—after all, time must soon set that right. Tell me about yourself. You are not looking well. Is there nothing I can do for you?”

An answering moisture came into Jessica’s eyes as she met the other’s look. She shook her head, and withdrew her wrist from the kindly pressure of Kate’s hand.

“I spoke of you at length with Mr. Tracy,” Kate went on, gently. “Do believe that we are both anxious to do all we can for you, in whatever form you like. You have never spoken about more money for the Resting House. Isn’t your store about exhausted? If it is, don’t hesitate for a moment to let me know. And mayn’t I go and see the house, now that I am here? You know I have never been inside it once since you took it.”

For a second or two Jessica hesitated. It cost her a great deal to maintain the unfriendly attitude she had taken up, and she was hopelessly at sea as to why she was paying this price for unalloyed unhappiness. Yet still she persisted doggedly, and as it were in spite of herself.

“It’s a good deal run down just now,” she said. “Since the trouble came, Lucinda and I haven’t kept it up. You’d like better to see it some time when it was in order; that is, if I—if it isn’t given up altogether!”

The despairing intonation of these closing words was not lost upon Kate. She looked up quickly.

“Why do you speak like that?” she said. “Are you discouraged, Jessica? Oh, I hope it isn’t as bad as that!”

“I’m thinking a good deal of going away. You and Miss Wilcox can put somebody else here, and keep open the house. It doesn’t need me. My heart isn’t in it any more.”

The girl forced herself through these words with a mournful effort. The hot tears came to her eyes before she had finished, and she turned away abruptly, walking behind the counter to the front of the shop.

Miss Minster rose and went to her. “There is something you are not telling me, my child,” she urged with tender earnestness. “What is it? Are you in trouble? Tell me. Let me help you!”

“There is nothing—nothing at all,” Jessica made answer. “Only I am not happy here. It was a mistake to come. And there are—other things—that were a mistake, too.”

“Why not confide in me, dear? Why not let me help you?”

“How could you help me?” The girl spoke with momentary impatience. “There are things that money can’t help.”

The rich young lady drew herself up instinctively, and tightened the fur about her neck. The words affected her almost like an affront.

“I’m very sorry,” she said, with an obvious cooling of manner. “I did not mean money alone. I had hoped you felt I was your friend. And I still want to be, if occasion arises. I shall be very much grieved, indeed, if you do not let me know, at any and all times, when I can be of use to you.”

She held out her hand, evidently as an indication that she was going. Jessica saw the hand through a mist of smarting tears, and took it, not daring to look up. She was filled with longings to kiss this hand, to cry out for forgiveness, to cast herself upon the soft shelter of this sweet friendship, so sweetly proffered. But there was some strange spell which held her back, and, still through the aching film of tears, she saw the gloved hand withdrawn. A soft “good-by” spread its pathos upon the silence about her, and then Miss Minster was gone.

Jessica stood for a time, looking blankly into the street. Then she turned and walked with unconscious directness, as in a dream, through the back rooms and across the yard to the Resting House. She had passed her stepmother, her sister, and her child without bestowing a glance upon them, and she wandered now through the silent building aimlessly, without power to think of what she saw. Although the furniture was still of the most primitive and unpretentious sort, there were many little appliances for the comfort of the girls, in which she had had much innocent delight. The bath-rooms on the upper floor, the willow rocking-chairs in the sitting-room, the neat row of cups and saucers in the glassfaced cupboard, the magazines and pattern books on the table—all these it had given her pleasure to contemplate only a fortnight ago. Now they were nothing to her. She noted that the fire in the base-burner had gone out, though the reservoir still seemed full of coal. She was conscious of a vague sense of fitness in its having gone out. The fire that had burned within her heart was in ashes, too. She put her apron to her eyes and wept vehemently, here in solitude.

Lucinda came out, nearly an hour later, to find her sister sitting disconsolate by the fireless stove, shivering with the cold, and staring into vacancy.

She put her broad arm with maternal kindness around Jessica’s waist, and led her unresisting toward the door. “Never mind, sis,” she murmured, with clumsy sympathy. “Come in and play with Horace.”

Jessica, shuddering again with the chill, buried her face on her sister’s shoulder, and wept supinely. There was not an atom of courage remaining in her heart.

“You are low down and miserable,” pursued Lucinda, compassionately. “I’ll make you up some boneset tea. It’ll be lucky if you haven’t caught your death a-cold out here so long.” She had taken a shawl, which hung in the hallway, and wrapped it about her sister’s shoulders.

“I half wish I had,” sobbed Jessica. “There’s no fight left in me any more.”

“What’s the matter, anyway?”

“If I knew myself,” the girl groaned in answer, “perhaps I could do something; but I don’t. I can’t think, I can’t eat or sleep or work. O God! what is the matter with me?”