Anderson greeted her and offered her a chair.  She seated herself with a conscious elegance, and disposed gracefully around her thin knees her blue muslin flounces.  There was a slight coquetry in her manner, although she was evidently anxious about something.  She looked around and spoke in a low voice.

“I want to ask you something,” she said, in a whisper.

“Certainly,” said Anderson.

“You used to be a lawyer, and I don’t suppose you have forgotten all your law, if you are in the grocery business now.”  There was about the woman the very naivete of commonplacedness and offence.

Anderson smiled.  “I trust not, Mrs. Griggs,” he replied.

“Well”—­she lowered her voice still more—­“I wanted to ask you—­ I’ve got a big job of work for—­that Carroll girl that’s going to be married, and I’ve heard something that made me kind of uneasy.  What I want to know is, do you s’pose I’m likely to get my pay?”

“I know nothing whatever about the family’s financial standing,” Anderson replied, after a slight pause.  He spoke constrainedly, and did not look at his questioner.

“You don’t know whether I’m likely to get my pay or not?”

Anderson looked at her then, the little, nervous, overworked, almost desperate creature, fighting like a little animal in her bay of life against the odds which would drive her from it, and he felt in a horrible perplexity.  He felt also profane.  Why could not he be left out of this? he inquired, with concealed emphasis.  Finally he said that he would rather not advise in a case about which he knew so little.

“I’m willing to pay,” said the dressmaker, with her artless vulgarity.

“It is not that,” Anderson said, quickly, with some asperity.

“I don’t know,” said the dressmaker, innocently deepening the offence, “but what you didn’t feel as if you could give law-advice for nothin’, even if you had quit the law.  I s’pose it cost you a good deal to learn the law, and I know you didn’t git your money back.”  She spoke with the kindest sympathy.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Anderson repeated, with an inflection of irritated patience.  “I cannot give any advice because I know nothing whatever about the matter.”

“Can’t you find out?”

“That belongs to the business which I have given up.”

“Well, I s’pose it does,” admitted Madame Griggs, with a sigh.  “I wouldn’t have bothered you if I hadn’t been at my wit’s end.”

“I am willing to do anything in my power—­” began Anderson, with a softened glance at the absurdly pathetic little figure, “but—­”

“Then you think I had better not trust them?”

“No; I said—­”

“You think I had better send her word I’ve changed my mind, and can’t do her work?”

Anderson winced.  “No; I did not say so,” he replied, vehemently.  “I merely said that you must settle—­”

“Then you think I had better keep on with it?”