"Miss Barton! as I live, dropping tears on that new silk gown of
Mrs. Hawkes'! Don't you know they will stain, and make it shabby
for ever? Crying like a baby, because a handsome young man meets
with an untimely end. For shame of yourself, miss! Mind your
character and your work, if you please. Or if you must cry" (seeing
her scolding rather increased the flow of Mary's tears, than
otherwise), "take this print to cry over. That won't be marked like
this beautiful silk," rubbing it, as if she loved it, with a clean
pocket-handkerchief, in order to soften the edges of the hard round
drops.

Mary took the print, and, naturally enough, having had leave given
her to cry over it, rather checked the inclination to weep.

Everybody was full of the one subject. The girl sent out to match
silk, came back with the account gathered at the shop, of the
coroner's inquest then sitting; the ladies who called to speak about
gowns first began about the murder, and mingled details of that,
with directions for their dresses. Mary felt as though the haunting
horror were a nightmare, a fearful dream, from which awakening would
relieve her. The picture of the murdered body, far more ghastly
than the reality, seemed to swim in the air before her eyes. Sally
Leadbitter looked and spoke of her, almost accusingly, and made no
secret now of Mary's conduct, more blamable to her fellow-workwomen
for its latter changeableness, than for its former giddy flirting.

"Poor young gentleman," said one, as Sally recounted Mary's last
interview with Mr. Carson.