“Nothing much,” said Rose.  “I am straight and respectable.  But I suppose a woman who wasn’t would pretend to be.  So you will have to decide about that for yourself.”

“Hmph!” grunted Miss Gibbons.  “I don’t know why I asked a fool question like that, unless it’s because, like the rest of them, I live in Centropolis.  I know what you are, as well as you do yourself.”

The words were brusk, and the inflection of them not much gentler, but they fell on Rose’s heart like rain; like an unexpected warm little shower out of a brazen sky.  She caught her breath, and, to her consternation, felt her eyes flushing up with tears.  She hadn’t realized the tension she had been under, until it was relaxed.  She gave a shaky half-suppressed sob and then made a desperate effort to pull herself together.

“Now, look here!” said Miss Gibbons, in a tone harder and dryer than ever.  “I’m not going to take you in and pay you wages just because you’re a cat in a strange garret and don’t know where to turn.  I’m not even going to do it to spite Harve Granger.  But, if you’ve got any sort of gumption about hats, I am going to do it, and the rest of this fool town can say what it likes and do what it pleases.  So the thing for you to do is to quiet down sensibly and show me whether you can trim a hat.”

It took Rose a few minutes to carry out the first part of this injunction.  The rush of relief and gratitude and happiness shook her.  Given carte blanche to design a special angel from Heaven to come down and give her just the comfort and encouragement she wanted, she couldn’t have imagined one so good as Miss Gibbons,—­with those keen straight-looking eyes that had observed her fellow citizens of Centropolis for the last half-century or so, not in vain; with her courageous common sense, and with that dry, cool, astringent manner, which lay with a pleasant healing sting on the lacerations of Rose’s soul.

For a while she just sat still and tried to get the catch out of her breathing.  At last, when she thought she could trust her voice not to break absurdly, she smiled and said: 

“What sort of hat do you want me to trim?  I mean, for what sort of person?”

“What sort of person!” echoed Miss Gibbons and gave Rose a rather keen look.  “Why,” she said, after hesitating a moment, “there’s a silly old maid in this town.  She ain’t more than ten years younger than I am, but her hair’s stayed sort of fluffy and yellow, and she’s kept part of her looks, though not near as much of them as she thinks.  She was a beautiful girl at twenty, I’ll say that for her.  None of these girls now compares with her.  But she was a little too sure of herself and took too long deciding among the young men of this town, until all at once, she found that nobody wanted her.  She’s been trying ever since to show she doesn’t care; and she pesters the life out of me twice a year trying to fit her out with a hat.  I won’t let her go around the streets looking like a giddy young fool, and that’s what she’s determined to do.  So, if you can suit her and me, you will be doing pretty well.”