A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue. The street wasfilled with people desperately bound on missions. An endless crowddarted at the elevated station stairs and the horse cars werethronged with owners of bundles.

The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. She was apparentlysearching for some one. She loitered near the doors of saloons andwatched men emerge from them. She scanned furtively the faces inthe rushing stream of pedestrians. Hurrying men, bent on catchingsome boat or train, jostled her elbows, failing to notice her,their thoughts fixed on distant dinners.

The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was nosmile. But when in repose her features had a shadowy look that waslike a sardonic grin, as if some one had sketched with cruelforefinger indelible lines about her mouth.

Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. The woman encounteredhim with an aggrieved air.

"Oh, Jimmie, I've been lookin' all over fer yehs--," she began.

Jimmie made an impatient gesture and quickened his pace.

"Ah, don't bodder me! Good Gawd!" he said, with thesavageness of a man whose life is pestered.

The woman followed him along the sidewalk in somewhat themanner of a suppliant.

"But, Jimmie," she said, "yehs told me ye'd--"

Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if resolved to make a laststand for comfort and peace.

"Say, fer Gawd's sake, Hattie, don' foller me from one end ofdeh city teh deh odder. Let up, will yehs! Give me a minute'sres', can't yehs? Yehs makes me tired, allus taggin' me. See? Ain' yehs got no sense. Do yehs want people teh get onto me?Go chase yerself, fer Gawd's sake."

The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. "But, look-a-here--"

Jimmie snarled. "Oh, go teh hell."

He darted into the front door of a convenient saloon and amoment later came out into the shadows that surrounded the sidedoor. On the brilliantly lighted avenue he perceived the forlornwoman dodging about like a scout. Jimmie laughed with an air ofrelief and went away.

When he arrived home he found his mother clamoring.Maggie had returned. She stood shivering beneath the torrentof her mother's wrath.

"Well, I'm damned," said Jimmie in greeting.

His mother, tottering about the room, pointed a quiveringforefinger.

"Lookut her, Jimmie, lookut her. Dere's yer sister, boy. Dere's yer sister. Lookut her! Lookut her!"

She screamed in scoffing laughter.

The girl stood in the middle of the room. She edged about asif unable to find a place on the floor to put her feet.

"Ha, ha, ha," bellowed the mother. "Dere she stands! Ain'she purty? Lookut her! Ain' she sweet, deh beast? Lookut her! Ha, ha, lookut her!"

She lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon herdaughter's face. She bent down and peered keenly up into the eyesof the girl.

"Oh, she's jes' dessame as she ever was, ain' she? She's hermudder's purty darlin' yit, ain' she? Lookut her, Jimmie! Comehere, fer Gawd's sake, and lookut her."

The loud, tremendous sneering of the mother brought thedenizens of the Rum Alley tenement to their doors. Women came inthe hallways. Children scurried to and fro.

"What's up? Dat Johnson party on anudder tear?"

"Naw! Young Mag's come home!"

"Deh hell yeh say?"

Through the open door curious eyes stared in at Maggie. Children ventured into the room and ogled her, as if they formedthe front row at a theatre. Women, without, bended toward eachother and whispered, nodding their heads with airs of profoundphilosophy. A baby, overcome with curiosity concerning this objectat which all were looking, sidled forward and touched her dress,cautiously, as if investigating a red-hot stove. Its mother'svoice rang out like a warning trumpet. She rushed forward andgrabbed her child, casting a terrible look of indignation at the girl.

Maggie's mother paced to and fro, addressing the doorful ofeyes, expounding like a glib showman at a museum. Her voice rangthrough the building.

"Dere she stands," she cried, wheeling suddenly and pointingwith dramatic finger. "Dere she stands! Lookut her! Ain' she adindy? An' she was so good as to come home teh her mudder, shewas! Ain' she a beaut'? Ain' she a dindy? Fer Gawd's sake!"

The jeering cries ended in another burst of shrill laughter.

The girl seemed to awaken. "Jimmie--"

He drew hastily back from her.

"Well, now, yer a hell of a t'ing, ain' yeh?" he said, hislips curling in scorn. Radiant virtue sat upon his brow and hisrepelling hands expressed horror of contamination.

Maggie turned and went.

The crowd at the door fell back precipitately. A baby fallingdown in front of the door, wrenched a scream like a wounded animalfrom its mother. Another woman sprang forward and picked it up,with a chivalrous air, as if rescuing a human being from anoncoming express train.

As the girl passed down through the hall, she went before opendoors framing more eyes strangely microscopic, and sending broadbeams of inquisitive light into the darkness of her path. On thesecond floor she met the gnarled old woman who possessed the music box.

"So," she cried, "'ere yehs are back again, are yehs? An'dey've kicked yehs out? Well, come in an' stay wid me teh-night. I ain' got no moral standin'."

From above came an unceasing babble of tongues, over all ofwhich rang the mother's derisive laughter.