Lory frowned, then shook her head.

“Oh, Ruth,” she sighed, putting a pitying hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry.”

Then she said a safe place to … work … and Lory suddenly found herself feeling a lot of weird things at once.

“Oh, Ruth,” she repeated, but in a way that sounded more strained. “It’s no place for a mother,” she fished into the front of her dress, but had to dip quite a ways down unlike the other girls for she was rather flat, “but I can spare you some change. How much do you need?”

Mmm, maybe not the emergency purse. She hiked up her skirt to her thigh instead, where her Chatelaine bag laid.