used in decoration and at weddings and funerals. In this branch of the work she displayed so much taste and skill that her services were employed more and more constantly.
She earned enough to supply her small wants, and the remains of the thousand dollars lay untouched in the bottom of her trunk.
As the winter began, with its early darkening of the days, its long gray spells of lowering weather, and its first warm, hesitating rains, Viola spent hours in the small room behind the store in Kearney Street, surrounded by flowers mounted on wire stalks, which she stuck into the mossy mold that filled in the skeleton frames. When the work was heavy she was assisted by the girl who waited in the shop—a self-confident, talkative young woman, whom every one called "Miss Gladys," and who had the most improbably golden hair and the most astonishingly high collars Viola had ever seen. Nevertheless, the confidential chatter of Miss Gladys, which ranged over a variety of topics, not the least of which was Miss Gladys's own conquering charm and its fatal power, had a salutary effect in diverting Viola from her brooding melancholy.
Her hours in the shop and greenhouse acted as preservatives of her physical health and mental freshness. Here she felt safe from observation, and worked on, with mind engrossed
