Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/266

254 luxuriantly for her as they did for the children on the floors above.

With the advance of winter and its multiplying gaieties, Viola's engagements at the florist's grew more and more frequent, her hours longer. Her employer realized that she was a more than ordinarily valuable acquisition, and constantly demanded the assistance of her skill and taste. She was often detained till long after dark, when she made a weary way up the hill to the cold dinner that had been awaiting her since six o'clock. On one of these nights, at the beginning of the rainy season, she walked past her destiny unseeing and unsuspecting.

It had been a lowering day. The clouds lying low and gray over the city bulged with rain which did not fall. The wind was moist and sweet, smelling as if it had blown over miles of rich earth, quick with germinating seed. People were out with umbrellas, and the children as they came home from school were protected by mackintoshes and rubbers.

, walking up Kearney Street in the gray of the late afternoon, observed his sister-in-law's coupé standing at the curb before a popular confectioner's. As he approached, Letitia emerged from the shop, her hands full of small boxes, and crossed the sidewalk to the carriage. He encountered her half-way, and paused with her by the carriage door for a