Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/154

 regained his shaken composure, and was listening quietly to the talk of one of them, who was gesticulating with southern vehemence. The newspaper woman saw the three step into a carriage and drive around to the stage door.

"Dolorita has asked them all to supper," she said to herself.

She went home, revolving many things in her mind. Her thoughts turned with poignant persistence to the picture of Nancy Willis, placidly dreaming in her chimney corner. She also pictured Andy, fashioning uncouth chairs for his bride's cabin.

"Ef Joe ever comes to N' York you 'uns 'll look out fer him, wunt yuh?" the mountain mother had asked, and Miss Herrick had accepted so improbable a trust with the ready unconcern of perfunctory kindness. She told herself now, as she walked briskly toward Broadway, that one of the wisest things in life is to allow others to manage their own affairs and that it was not her place to interfere in this one. Whereupon she promptly decided to call on Dolorita in the morning.

That young woman received her in the