before her, as different a person as if she were an inhabitant of another planet.  He was digesting the soggy, sweet griddle-cakes which he had eaten for breakfast, and revolving in his mind two errands for his wife—­one, a pail of lard; the other, three yards of black dress braid; he was considering the surface scum of existence, that which pertained solely to his own petty share of it; the girl, the clear residue of life which was, and had been, and would be.  Each was on the way to humble labor for daily bread, but with a difference of eternity between them.

But when Ellen reached the end of the cross street where the Atkins girls lived, she heard a sound which dispelled her rapt state.  Her far vision became a near one; she saw, as it were, the clouded window-glass between her mortal eyes and the beyond, and the sound of a cough brought it about.  Abby and Maria were coming towards her through the snow.  Maria was coughing violently, and Abby was scolding her.

“I don’t care anything about it, Maria Atkins,” Abby was saying, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself coming out such a morning as this.  There isn’t any sense in it.  You know you’ll catch cold, and then there’ll be two of you to take care of.  You don’t help a mite doing so, you needn’t think you do.”

When Abby caught sight of Ellen she hastened forward, while Maria, still coughing, trailed behind, lifting her little, heavy, snow-bound feet wearily.

“Ellen, I wish you’d tell Maria to turn around and go home,” she said.  “Just hear her cough, and out in all this snow, and getting her skirts draggled.  She hasn’t got common-sense, you tell her so.”

Ellen stopped, nodding assentingly.  “I think she’s right, Maria,” she said.  “You ought not to be out such a morning as this.  You had better go home.”

Maria came up smiling, though her lips were quite white, and she controlled her cough to convulsive motions of her chest.

“I am no worse than usual,” said she.  “I feel better than I generally do in the morning.  I haven’t coughed any more, if I have as much, and I am holding my dress up high, and you know how warm the factory is.  It will be enough sight warmer than it is at home.  It is cold at home.”

“Lloyd don’t have to save coal,” said Abby, bitterly, “but that don’t alter the fact of your getting your skirts draggled.”

Maria pulled up her skirts so high that she exposed her slender ankles, then seeing that she had done so, she let them fall with a quick glance at two men behind them.

“The snow will shake right off; it’s light, Abby,” she said.

“It ain’t light.  I should think you might listen to Ellen, if you won’t to me.”

Ellen pressed close to Maria, and pulled her thin arm through her own.  “Look here,” she said, “don’t you think—­”