“’Sh-h-h!  Don’t cry, Hat.  Yes, yes; I know.  She was a swell little kid; all the old girls say so.  ’Sh-h-h!”

“The—­the night she died I—­I died, too; I—­”

“’Sh-h-h, dearie!”

“I ain’t crying, only—­only I can’t help remembering.”

“Listen!  That’s the new hit Charley’s playing—­’Up to Snuff!’ Say, ’ain’t that got some little swing to it?  Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m!  Some little quickstep, ain’t it?  How that boy reads off by sight!  Looka, will you?  They got them left-over ribbed undervests we sold last season for forty-nine cents out on the grab table for seventy-four.  Looka the mob fighting for ’em!  Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m!”

The day’s tide came in.  Slowly at first, but toward noon surging through aisles and around bins, up-stairs and down-stairs—­in, around, and out.  Voices straining to be heard; feet shuffling in an agglomeration of discords—­the indescribable roar of humanity, which is like an army that approaches but never arrives.  And above it all, insistent as a bugle-note, reaching the basement’s breadth, from hardware to candy, from human hair to white goods, the tinny voice of the piano—­gay, rollicking.

At five o’clock the patch of daylight above the red-lighted exit door turned taupe, as though a gray curtain had been flung across it; and the girls, with shooting pains in their limbs, braced themselves for the last hour.  Shoppers, their bags bulging and their shawls awry, fumbled in bins for a last remnant; hatless, sway-backed women, carrying children, fought for mill ends.  Sara Juke stood first on one foot and then on the other to alternate the strain; her hands were hot and dry as flannel, but her cheeks were pink—­very pink.

At six o’clock Hattie Krakow untied her black alpaca apron, pinned a hat as nondescript as a bird’s nest at an unrakish angle, and slid into a warm, gray jacket.

“Ready, Sara?”

“Yes, Hat.”  But her voice came vaguely, as through fog.

“I’m going to fix us some stew to-night with them onions Lettie brought up to the room when she moved—­mutton stew, with a broth for you, Sara.”

“Yes, Hat.”

Sara’s eyes darted out over the emptying aisles; and, even as she pinned on her velveteen poke-bonnet at a too-swagger angle, and fluffed out a few carefully provided curls across her brow, she kept watch and with obvious subterfuge slid into her little unlined silk coat with a deliberation not her own.

“Coming, Sara?”

“Wait, can’t you?  My—­my hat ain’t on right.”

“Come on; you’re dolled up enough.”

“My—­my gloves—­I—­I forgot ’em.  You—­you can go on, Hat.”  And she burrowed back beneath the counter.

Miss Krakow let out a snort, as fiery with scorn as though flames were curling on her lips.  “Hanging round to see whether he’s coming, ain’t you?  To think they shot Lincoln and let him live!  Before I’d run after any man living, much less the excuse of a man like him!  A shiny-haired, square-faced little rat like him!”