It was not chance that caused Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King to see Mimi and Carl as they left the hall. Always they took a shortcut homewards from prayer meeting which carried them past the two-storied brick building which housed on its top floor the hall.
“Look there, Mis’ King!” whispered Mrs. Plummer. “Ain’t that that Day-quinn girl with that Carl Hunter coming outa that joint?”
“It’s her, sho’s you born,” Mrs. King assured her. “I told you she’d bear watching. Playing off respectable and going in such places—”
“That’s just what I say,” eagerly put in Mrs. Plummer, determined that her friend should not get ahead of her in the discovery made by her own sharp eyes. “An’ her ma’s such a good woman—though they tell me she ain’t her own ma, only her step-ma. But you remember I tol’ you befo’ they come here you couldn’t depen’ on these here Cath’lics—I’m a good Methodist and I ain’t got much use for Baptists but they’re regular Christians, anyhow—” Mrs. Plummer shook with quick breaths, the combined result of her eagerness and the speed at which Mrs.