"What good would my recommendation do? You can always go and get another position with people who've lived the way I've lived, and my recommendation to the other kind wouldn't amount to much."
Overcome by emotion and disappointment, Annie collapsed on a trunk.
"Ah can just see wheah Ah'm goin'!" she cried; "back to dat boa'din-house fo' me."
"Now, shut your noise," cried Laura impatiently. "I don't want to hear any more. I've given you twenty-five dollars for a present. I think that's enough."
"Ah know," replied the negress, putting on a most aggrieved appearance, "but twenty-five dollars ain't a home, and I'm losin' my home. Dat's jest my luck—every time I save enough money to buy my weddin' clothes to get married, I lose my job."
Laura paced nervously from window to door, from door to window, listening for every footstep.
"I wonder why he doesn't come," she murmured anxiously. "We'll never be able to make that train!"
Picking the timetable off the floor, she sat down in a chair and began to study it intently. While thus engaged, she heard the elevator stop on their floor. She jumped to her feet. There he was! After a few seconds' interval, the bell rang. Yes—that was he. Without waiting for Annie, she rushed to open the door, and fell back, visibly disappointed. It was not John, after all.
"How-dy-do, Miss Laura?"
The visitor was her old friend, Jim Weston. The advance agent was neatly dressed in black, and he had about him an appearance of prosperity which she was not accustomed to see. He looked different, more staid and respectable, but his drollness of speech and kindly manner were the same as ever. He held out his hand to Laura, who invited him in. He came at an inopportune time, but she could not forget his kindness to her during those terrible days at Mrs. Farley's.