There was always something her busy fingers could turn to when tired of household tasks; bead-work and basket-weaving, embroidery, knitting, even strange feats of upholstering, and any repair work that called for a vigorous use of hammer and saw and paint-brush.  A girl who could sit by the hour watching ants and spiders and bees, who could quote poems by the yard, who loved to write letters and could lose herself to the world any time in a new book, was not a difficult guest to entertain.  She could easily find amusement for herself even in the top flat of a New York apartment house.  So Joyce went on with her painting with a care-free mind.

Meanwhile Mary was slipping into her travelling suit, hurrying on hat and gloves and furs, and with her heart beating loud at her own daring, boldly stepping out into the strange streets by herself.  It was easy to find the corner where they had taken the car the night before.  Only one block to the right and then one down towards a certain building whose mammoth sign served her as a landmark.  But the night before she had not noticed that the track turned and twisted many times before it reached the corner where they changed for the East Side car, and she had not noticed how long it took to travel the distance.  Rigid with anxiety lest she should pass the place she kept a sharp look-out, till she began to fear that she must have already done so, and finally mustered up courage to tell the conductor the name of the bank at which she wished to stop.

“Quarter of an hour away, Miss,” he answered shortly.  So she relaxed her tension a trifle, but not her vigilance.  There were a thousand things to look at, but she dared not become too interested, for fear the conductor should forget her destination, and she should pass it.

At last she spied the grim forbidding building for which she was watching, and almost the next instant was going up the steps, just three minutes before the clock inside pointed to the hour of opening.  She could not see the time, however, as the heavy iron doors were closed, and the moments before they were swung open seemed endless.  It seemed to her that people stared at her curiously, and her face grew redder than even the cold wind warranted.  Then she heard the porter inside shoot the bolts back and turn the key, and as the door swung open she darted past him so suddenly that he fell back with a startled exclamation.

In her confusion all she saw was the teller’s window, with a shrewd-eyed man behind its bars, looking at her so keenly that she was covered with confusion, and forgot the name of the man she wanted to see.

[Illustration :  “ALL SHE SAW WAS THE TELLER’S WINDOW, WITH A SHREWD-EYED MAN BEHIND ITS BARS”]

“I—­I—­think it is Wheatley,” she stammered.  “Any way he is awfully fat, and has two double chins, and married the president’s daughter, and he takes up the collection at St. Boniface.”