It was one of those calm,
blue-misted, balmy, November days that New Orleans can have when
all the rest of the country is fur-wrapped. Miss Sophie pulled
her machine to the window, where the sweet, damp wind could whisk
among her black locks.
Whirr, whirr, went the machine, ticking fast and lightly over the
belts of the rough jeans pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss
Sophie was actually humming a tune! She felt strangely light
to-day.
"Ma foi," muttered Michel, strolling across the street to where
Madame Laurent sat sewing behind the counter on blue and
brown-checked aprons, "but the little ma'amselle sings. Perhaps
she recollects."
"Perhaps," muttered the rabbe woman.
But little Miss Sophie felt restless. A strange impulse seemed
drawing her up town, and the machine seemed to run slow, slow,
before it would stitch all of the endless number of jeans belts.
Her fingers trembled with nervous haste as she pinned up the
unwieldy black bundle of finished work, and her feet fairly
tripped over each other in their eagerness to get to Claiborne
Street, where she could board the up-town car. There was a
feverish desire to go somewhere, a sense of elation, a foolish
happiness that brought a faint echo of colour into her pinched
cheeks. She wondered why.
No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line
are too much accustomed to frail little black-robed women with
big, black bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights.
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