Page:Sheila and Others (1920).djvu/182

Rh mantic inclination and blind nature and misdirected impulse that were tangled in her narrow experience. She was like a bird, a little, eager beak of a face and tiny claw-hands. She had the cheerful sufficiency of the bird too, whose next meal will somehow be found when the hour for it is due.

"Ef it wasn't for me havin' no hat," she said with as near a look of dejection as I ever saw on the spry little face.

"No hat?" I exclaimed.

"Yaas 'M. Me 'at was blowed off w'en I was comin' to Toronto an' I ain't never got once sense. It takes everythin' I makes to keep me goin'. I ain't made many frens yit, an' doesn't be goin' out as I shud be. Ef yuh hears of any one wantin' a lady to wash mebby ye'd jes tell 'em 'bout me."

"But whatever do you do without a hat, Lizzie?"

"Oh, the lan'-lady she len's me hern w'en I hes far to come. Its mighty good of 'er. I'm goin' to take her to the show w'en I gits enough ahead."

I sorted industriously through sundry boxes of decayed millinery during the intervening week before Lizzie's next appearance, and had