Leaky, frail and fissured, they were not the kind of
places anyone who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found
the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked
pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery; and the
light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her.
There were cracks in the thin, boarded walls, from which a faint resinous
odor exuded, but it failed to hide the sour smell of the wet sawdust upon
which the shack was built. The room, which was almost bare of furniture,
felt damp and unwholesome.
"You oughtn't to be at work; you don't look fit," Vane said to Celia. He
paused a moment, hesitating, before he added: "I'm sorry we couldn't find
that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we're going back to try again."
The girl smiled bravely.
"Then you'll find it the next time. I'm glad I'm able to do a little; it
brings in a few dollars."
"But what are you doing?"
"Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterward some friends of
hers sent me two or three more to trim. She said she'd try to get me work
from one of the big stores."
"But you're not a milliner, are you?" asked Vane, feeling grateful to
Jessy for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.
"Celia's something better," Kitty broke in. "She's a genius."
"Isn't that a slight on the profession?" Vane laughed.
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