Tragic as this was, my mind was for the moment intent on something else.
"But she wears a wedding ring!" I said.
The matron pulled a heavy ledger toward her.
"Oh, yes; they all do. They'd go starved, but they'd buy a wedding ring."
She pressed her lips together, shook her head, and began setting down data,—my name, address, occupation, the names of two of my friends,—they must be people of some standing, who could vouch for me; then more as to Mamie, I suppose, in the interest of system and statistics.
I can give you no idea of the comradeship of that journey with Mamie and Anne. Mamie looked delightedly out of the car-window, noting the most trifling points of interest with enthusiasm, and saying every little while, "Well, what do you think of that!" Or she would excitedly point out some speeding bird, or flitting house, or other flying object, to Anne, and Anne would lurch forward to look, her little nose sometimes touching the pane, and then would turn good-naturedly and look at me, with every air of asking me if that probably so-interesting object had managed to escape me also.
When we arrived at the house, Mamie was as cheerful as a sparrow. The room on which flat-footed fairies and dull Audreys had looked with unconcealed contempt or disapproval, she flew to. She settled in it like a bird in her nest, and chirped contentedly to Anne,—
"Oh, Anne, look at the nice bureau! And the washstand! What do you think of that!" Then she turned to me, with that winning comradely smile: "I like bureaus and washstands—furniture, I mean, and things. It makes you think of home." And she drew her hand along the bureau.
I did not know then, but I soon found out, that this was the top and bottom of all her longings, and this the real hunger of her heart,—a hunger starved enough, of course, in all her orphan-asylum years,—a craving for a place of her own.
Mamie talked much of "Bill." He filled her life and days, there could be no doubt. If she swept, it was to his glory. If she scrubbed a floor or kneaded dough, or bent affectionately over the scalloping of a pie-crust, it was certainly for love of him that she lent these her attention. She soon began sending him her weekly earnings. I remonstrated, and suggested that it might be better to save her money against another rainy day. She dusted her hands of flour and began scraping the bread-board, vigorously, with the strength of her whole body. I waited for my reply. At last it came.