but there being only a few persons in the street, she had to remain at a considerable distance behind, so as not to attract her attention.  Suddenly, she lost sight of Pinky.  She had looked back on hearing a noise in the street; turning again, she could see nothing of the girl.  Hurrying forward to the corner which Pinky had in all probability turned, Mrs. Bray looked eagerly up and down, but to her disappointment Pinky was not in sight.

“Somewhere here.  I thought it was farther off,” said Mrs. Bray to herself.  “It’s too bad that I should have lost sight of her.”

She stood irresolute for a little while, then walked down one of the blocks and back on the other side.  Halfway down, a small street or alley divided the block.

“It’s in there, no doubt,” said Mrs. Bray, speaking to herself again.  On the corner was a small shop in which notions and trimmings were sold.  Going into this, she asked for some trifling articles, and while looking over them drew the woman who kept the shop into conversation.

“What kind of people live in this little street?” she inquired, in a half-careless tone.

The woman smiled as she answered, with a slight toss of the head,

“Oh, all kinds.”

“Good, bad and indifferent?”

“Yes, white sheep and black.”

“So I thought.  The black sheep will get in.  You can’t keep ’em out.”

“No, and ’tisn’t much use trying,” answered the shop-keeper, with a levity of manner not unmarked by Mrs. Bray, who said,

“The black sheep have to live as well as the white ones.”

“Just so.  You hit the nail there.”

“And I suppose you find their money as good as that of the whitest?”

“Oh yes.”

“And quite as freely spent?”

“As to that,” answered the woman, who was inclined to be talkative and gossipy, “we make more out of the black sheep than out of the white ones.  They don’t higgle so about prices.  Not that we have two prices, but you see they don’t try to beat us down, and never stop to worry about the cost of a thing if they happen to fancy it.  They look and buy, and there’s the end of it.”

“I understand,” remarked Mrs. Bray, with a familiar nod.  “It may be wicked to say so; but if I kept a store like this, I’d rather have the sinners for customers than the saints.”

She had taken a seat at the counter; and now, leaning forward upon her arms and looking at the shop-woman in a pleasant, half-confidential way, said,

“You know everybody about here?”

“Pretty much.”

“The black sheep as well as the white?”

“As customers.”

“Of course; that’s all I mean,” was returned.  “I’d be sorry if you knew them in any other way—­some of them, at least.”  Then, after a pause, “Do you know a girl they call Pinky?”

“I may know her, but not by that name.  What kind of a looking person is she?”