She sacrificed one of her precious quarters to get rid of the attentive porter, and started off with a brisk step down the long platform to the station.  It was part of her plan to get out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible, so she followed the stream of people who instead of going into the waiting-room veered off to the street door and out into the great, wet, noisy world.  With the same reasoning, she followed a group of people into a car, which presently brought her into the neighborhood of the large stores, as she had hoped it would.  It was with relief that she recognized the name on one of the stores as being of world-wide reputation.

Well for her that she was an experienced shopper.  She went straight to the millinery department and arranged to have the hat boxed and sent to the address Dunham had given her.  Her gentle voice and handsome rain-coat proclaimed her a lady and commanded deference and respectful attention.  As she walked away, she had an odd feeling of having communicated with her one friend and preserver.

It had cost less to express the hat than she had feared, yet her stock of money was woefully small.  Some kind of a dress she must have, and a wrap, that she might be disguised, but what could she buy and yet have something left for food?  There was no telling how long it would be before she could replenish her purse.  Life must be reduced to its lowest terms.  True, she had jewelry which might be sold, but that would scarcely be safe, for if she were watched, she might easily be identified by it.  What did the very poor do, who were yet respectable?

The ready-made coats and skirts were entirely beyond her means, even those that had been marked down.  With a hopeless feeling, she walked aimlessly down between the tables of goods.  The suit-case weighed like lead, and she put it on the floor to rest her aching arms.  Lifting her eyes, she saw a sign over a table—­“Linene Skirts, 75 cts. and $1.00.”

Here was a ray of hope.  She turned eagerly to examine them.  Piles of sombre skirts, blue and black and tan.  They were stout and coarse and scant, and not of the latest cut, but what mattered it?  She decided on a seventy-five cent black one.  It seemed pitiful to have to economize in a matter of twenty-five cents, when she had been used to counting her money by dollars, yet there was a feeling of exultation at having gotten for that price any skirt at all that would do.  A dim memory of what she had read about ten-cent lodging-houses, where human beings were herded like cattle, hovered over her.

Growing wise with experience, she discovered that she could get a black sateen shirt-waist for fifty cents.  Rubbers and a cotton umbrella took another dollar and a half.  She must save at least a dollar to send back the suit-case by express.