"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go—shakin' yer shkirts an' rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' attractive."
"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it."
With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the wharves and public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the stoop directly in front of George Fletcher.
"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer.
"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher."
"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given name—Cordelia, isn't it?—but your last na—Oh, thank you—Miss Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the home of my little apprentice, Joe—the line-man's wedding, you know."
"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I think it was just terrible."
"Were you going somewhere?"
"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, ain't it?"
"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?"