Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/74

 cheap meals a day. But the charm faded as the novelty wore off, and when the two meals became one meal, and finally, as to-day and yesterday, no meal, Miss Imboden sighed for vulgar affluence. It was the dull season. There was no hope of securing a position until fall—and to-day was Saturday, the twenty-fifth of August. All her friends were out of town. The two or three newspaper associates whom she knew intimately enough to go to in such straits were away on their vacations. There was absolutely no one from whom she could or would borrow—and she was hungry.

She put on her hat and thrust the pin through her soft brown hair. She had not pawned her clothes—she could not afford to do that, she had told herself. She would make a good appearance to the last, and if the morgue was inevitable, perhaps she would be treated as a gentlewoman should be treated—a gentlewoman in "temporary financial difficulties." There was nothing suggestive of these about the slight, elegant figure in its well-fitting tailor-made gown. Her shoes and gloves were perfect, her hat a becoming little