long whiles. Her eyes went back on her--a nice sewer, as nice a sewer as we ever had--dear, dear! I don't know when anybody asked me about Sophia Pease--she made them dolls you was just mentioning--" she motioned toward the disconsolate string toy--"dear, dear! she made them even after she couldn't see for regular sewing--"

"Now can't you remember me?" reiterated Felicia pleadingly.

The Disagreeable Walnut shook her head.

"Can't say as I do--"

"But I am Felice--the little girl who came with Mademoiselle D'Ormy to get Miss Pease--can't you see that I am?"

The old woman's tittering laugh of denial made Felicia want to shake her.

"That child--why you hain't she--she wouldn't be the matter of half your age--you must be thirty-five or forty, hain't ye? She grew up and run away like the rest of her women folks--" she giggled sardonically, "Was a young limb, she was, I used to hear her whistling at them choir boys next door--a young limb--all the girls in that family was man- chasers--the mother run off with the rector's son--younger'n she was-- by a good two years I should say, she must ha' been thirty if she was a minute--but pretty--prettier n' her mother--ever see the mother, Miss Trenton--Miss Montrose that was?"

"Did you?" breathed Felicia. "Oh, did you see Grandy's Louisa?"

"Did I ever see her?" the Disagreeable Walnut leaned her sharp elbows on the show case. "I see her when she was a bride--I'd just took charge here then--she was a high-stepper! The Major hadn't a penny when she married him but she had all the Montrose money and she got him--some say as she told him if he'd marry her she'd live on what he earned--but I guess he couldn't have earned the matter of her shoe strings--not the way she dressed--she was stylish and tasty in her dress--and then she eloped--with that lawyer fellow--some says she didn't elope with him, but she went off for some French property her mother had left her--but I dunno--she was an awful high-stepper. All I know is that after she was dead and the Major brought Miss Octavia home--"

"Did you see Maman? Did you?" Felicia could hardly breath, "Did you see Octavia--wasn't she sweet? Wasn't she darling--didn't you love her, love, love her?"

"Too high-stepping!" sniffed the old woman, "Whole lot of 'em was too high-stepping for me--never liked any of 'em--"

"She didn't step at all--" Felicia's anger was rising, "She just stayed in her bed and stayed in her bed--how dare you say you--oh! oh!" Color burned in her pale cheeks, "I won't have you say such things--"

"Well, I hain't quarreling with you about them folks," said the Disagreeable Walnut sententiously, "They're all dead and buried anyhow. And pore Sophia Pease might jes' as well be--mewed up in that Baptist home where her friends, if she's got any, can't see her excepting on Sundays--my stars! I wouldn't go to live in that Home, no sir, I wouldn't--nor I wouldn't want to live at the--"

"Can you tell me," Felicia broke in upon this flood of opinions, "Where I could go to see Miss Pease?"

"I'm telling you--the Baptist Home--"

"I do think she'd know me," Felicia murmured thoughtfully. "I do think she would." She moved toward the door, intent upon trying to see Miss Pease.

But the Disagreeable Walnut, for all that she was old, was quite capable of handling her job. She called petulantly after her retreating caller.

"What was you coming in for--anything you wanted to buy?"

Felicia turned.

"How stupid I am to forget. I came because it was Friday, you know, I wanted to have some work, please. For two dollars a day and lunch."

The shop keeper pulled a dusty ledger toward her.

"Are you registered or new?"

"I--I think I'm new, I'm not registered."

The ledger was pushed around toward her, the shop keeper reached fretfully for the spattered ink bottle.

"By the day or home work?"

"By the day," said Felicia decisively.

"Then sign here," a trembling finger indicated the line.

It was a new page. No one had signed it yet. At the top was printed,

NAME ADDRESS JOB APPLIED FOR DATE Mrs. or Miss.

And Felicia wrote, guiding the rusty pen carefully. Last of all, she wrote just after the printed Miss, in firm letters, "By The Day," and pushed back the book.

The Disagreeable Walnut pursed her lips, she couldn't really see anything through the blur of her glasses.

The bell jangled, a brisk old person, much like the Disagreeable Walnut, save that she looked agreeable, entered breathlessly.

"Sorry I was late," she dumped various bundles on the counter, "How'd you make out, Susan?" She eyed Felicia as she began pulling at her gloves. "Did my sister find what you wanted?"

"She wants work," quavered Susan, considerably less reliant than she'd been a moment before. "I dunno where the work book is. I declare I can't keep track of where you put things, Sarah--is there anybody could use her? She wants sewing."

The brisk person swung the book around glancing at it capably as she removed her hat.

"Oh, you've signed it in the wrong place. You should have put your name there--not the way you were going to work"--her finger rested on the place Felicia had written. "What is your name? Your name isn't Miss By-the-Day is it?" she asked good-humoredly.

"Why, I think it is," Felicia smiled back, "I think it will have to be--it's Day," she added shyly.

"Miss or Mrs.?"

"Miss."

"And what kind of work, please?"

"Like the Wheezy--sewing--for two dollars a day and lunch"--she repeated it like a lesson.

"There's a day a week at 440 Linton Avenue--Mrs. Alden's, perhaps you could go there. Have you references?"

"I don't even know what they are," Miss By-the-Day replied.

The brisk person laughed.

"Well you must have an address, where do you live?"

"In my own house," her chin lifted proudly, "Montrose Place."

"But if you have a house," the interrogator's voice was kindly if her words were severe, "we can't possibly give you work. You see, our work is for persons who have no other means of support, no other ways of making their living."

Felicia's lips quivered.

"I haven't, that's why I came. You see it's all taxes and assessments and fines and--it's so fearfully dirty and I haven't any money"--she held out Louisa's reticule a bit ruefully. "You can see I haven't."

"I see"--the brisk person stepped back to the telephone. She was thoughtful as she waited for her connection. She talked quietly, murmuring things about some one who looked thoroughly responsible. Presently she wrote down an address that she handed to Felicia. "You must be there at eight o'clock in the morning, can you do that, Miss By-the-Day?"

"There's something else I'd like you to write--it's the place where Miss Pease lives--"

"You can't go to see her except Sundays," Miss Sarah cautioned her. "They're strict."

After Felicia had gone the brisk woman straightened things about a bit, humming under her breath.

"Su-san"--she called through the doorway, "haven't we seen that woman somewheres? She looks awful familiar." Miss Susan grunted.

"She tried to make out she knew me, but I dunno--she can't never sew to suit Mis' Freddie Alden and you know she can't--nobody can please young Miss' Alden--old Miss' Alden was bad enough but young Miss' Alden is worse--"

Of her adventures "by-the-day" only Felicia could have "found the pattern." And as in the case of the garden of old, even she was a long time discovering any design in the confusing blur of their outlines. Perhaps it was because each day was like a bit of glass in a child's kaleidoscope, an episode in itself, ugly, irregular and meaningless, until Felicia's rage against life tumbled each piece into position and let them all reflect in quaint order against the clear sweet mirrors of her faith and hope and charity.

Who but Felicia could have shaken beauty from that first unlovely "by- the-day"? Seamstress after seamstress had come and gone in that impossibly selfish household, the meek ones enduring it until they could endure no more, the proud ones hurrying angrily away; competent or incompetent, not one of them had ever been able to please her