The store was apparently flourishing, and except for such few useful articles as stockings and shirts it was stocked with trash.  Patronized entirely by labouring men and women, it was an indication to their needs.  Here, for example, was a stand hung with silk dress skirts, trimmed with lace and velvet.  They were made after models of expensive dress-makers and were attempts at the sort of thing a Mme. de Rothschild might wear at the Grand Prix de Paris.

Varying from $11 to $20, there was not one of the skirts made of material sufficiently solid to wear for more than a few Sunday outings.  On another counter there were hats with extravagant garlands of flowers, exaggerated bows and plumes, wraps with ruffles of lace and long pendant bows; silk boleros; a choice of things never meant to be imitated in cheap quality.

[Illustration:  THE REAR OF A CHICAGO TENEMENT]

I watched the customers trying on.  Possessed of grace and charm in their native costumes, hatless, with gay-coloured shawls on their shoulders, the Italian women, as soon as they donned the tawdry garb of the luxury-loving labourer, were common like the rest.  In becoming prosperous Americans, animated by the desire for material possession which is the strength and the weakness of our countrymen, they lost the character that pleases us, the beauty we must go abroad to find.

Miss Arnold priced everything, compared quality and make with Jacksonville productions, and decided to buy nothing, but in refusing to buy she had an air of opulence and taste hard to please which surpassed the effect any purchase could have made.

Sunday morning Mrs. Brown asked me to join her and Miss Arnold for breakfast They were both in slippers and dressing-gowns.  We boiled the coffee and set the table with doughnuts and sweet cakes, which Miss Arnold kept in a paper bag in her room.

“I hardly ever eat, except between meals,” she explained.  “A nibble of cake or candy is as much as I can manage, my digestion is so poor.”

“Ever since Brown died,” the widow responded, “I’ve had my meals just the same as though he were here.  All I want,” she went on, as we seated ourselves and exchanged courtesies in passing the bread and butter, “all I want is somebody to be kind to me.  I’ve got a young niece that I’ve tried to have with me.  I wrote to her and says:  ’Your auntie’s heart’s just crying out for you!’ And I told her I’d leave her all I’ve got.  But she said she didn’t feel like she could come.”

As soon as breakfast is over the mundane member of the household starts off on a day’s round of visits.  When the screen door has shut upon her slender silhouette, Mrs. Brown settles down for a chat.  She takes out the brush and comb, unbraids her silver locks and arranges them while she talks.

“Miss Arnold’s always on the go; she’s awful nervous.  These society people aren’t happy.  Life’s not all pleasure for them.  You can be sure they have their ups and downs like the rest of us.”