She looked fresh and strong, and her cheery smile made her seem beautiful to Rose.
"How did you sleep?"
Rose shook her head. Mary laughed.
"I can tell by the looks of you. Look's if you'd been pulled through a knot-hole, as they say up in Molasses Gap. Heard everything that took place, didn't you? I did too. You'll get over that. I sleep like a top now."
"What is that smell? Pah!" shuddered Rose.
Mary elevated her freckled nose. "What smell? O, you mean that rotten, piney, turpentiney smell—that's the Chicago smell. It comes from the pavin' blocks, I guess. I never inquired. I'll ask Mr. Reed, he knows everything mean about Chicago. Well, you hadn't better go to breakfast looking like that. I want you to paralyze that Boston snipe. I'll bring in your breakfast."
Rose accepted this service passively; nothing else was to be done in Mary Compton's presence. She had the energy of a steam threshing machine, and affection to correspond.
Rose wondered again what she could do next. She was here to study art and literature—there was the library! She would read. And there were lectures perhaps; what she was to do would come to her after awhile.
Mary returned a little hot of color, bringing a tray.
"That Boston clothes-pin says you're a myth or a country gawk. You must lay him out cold as a handspike. I've been bragging about you and they were all on tip-toe to see you this morning. You sail in on 'em at dinner the way you used to do at our chapter-house spreads. Weren't they great! There now, I've got to vamoose. I'm not a lady of leisure. I'm a typewriter on trial and looks won't carry me through. I've got to rustle and walk chalk, as they say in Molasses Gap. So good-bye. Take it easy today. If you want to walk, go over to the lake front," and she banged out of the door and faced the city in her daily encounter.