For, while Mrs.Blobbs had a license and could advance money at reasonable rates, her principal business was in old-clothes and ready-to-wear finery.

Being near "The Avenue" and well known to its denizens, many of their outgrown and out-of-fashion garments had passed across her counter.

Here the young man who pounded away on Masie's piano, the night of her birthday party, borrowed, for a trifle, his evening suit.

Here Codman had exchanged a three-year-old overcoat, which refused to be buttoned across his constantly increasing girth, for enough money to pay for the velvet cuffs and collar of the new one purchased on Sixth Avenue.

Here Mrs.Codman bought remnants of finery with which to adorn her young daughter's skirts when she went to the ball given by the Washington chowder party.