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been a woman, Mary Magdalene would never have received absolution.

The banker came back to the topic in hand.

"Well, I couldn't sanction any such procedure as that, Roxie; Miss Nessie is entirely different. . . ."

"You mean she's prettier!" snapped the old woman.

"I mean it's her first offence!" retorted the banker sharply. "I'd like to know where your Christian charity comes in if a single misstep—"

"Single misstep! Huh! You're mighty innocent; her and that Teeftaller boardin' in the same hotel!"

"Anyway, I don't consider her habitually bad, and I personally won't do a thing to disturb the unfortunate girl. You and some other good woman ought to go down and talk to her, Roxie."

"Huh, I'm goin' down an' talk to Mr. Baxter an' tell him what sort of a girl he's got workin' in his millinery department!"

"Roxie!" exclaimed the cashier in alarm. "I wouldn't do that, it'll cost the girl her position!"

"It's somebody's duty to do it!" cried the old woman fiercely. "Somebody ort to tell Mr. Baxter what a hypocrite he's housin'. She'll run off all his trade! What decent woman would go there and trade with an unchaste woman! Take it to yourse'f, Perry Northcutt, supposed you had a crooked girl in your bank, would you keep her there a minute? Course not! Somebody ort to tell Mr. Baxter, an' I, for one, don't shirk my duty when I see it!" She wagged her gray unkempt head determinedly. "I'll tell it right before the girl if she's there! I'm not the one to say behind a person's back what I won't say to her face! So there!"

Mrs. Roxie snapped her lean jaws together, dilated her high thin nostrils, whirled about, and hurried out of the bank to discharge her duty as a citizen of Irontown. As she went she fired a last broadside,

"If your father, Perry Northcutt, who is dead an' in Heaven, can look over the golden walls and see you taking