She was trying to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling last season's skirt at all.

"As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back so that it would not be seen." She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion.

She was such a simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured, childlike smile.

A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment.

As she got out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was positively radiant.