ter, and going
in the front room, the alcove of which contained her bed, drew the one
small rocking-chair up to the open window, and sat looking out upon
the night and streets in silent wonder. Finally, wearied by her own
reflections, she began to grow dull in her chair, and feeling the need
of sleep, arranged her clothing for the night and went to bed.

When she awoke at eight the next morning, Hanson had gone. Her sister
was busy in the dining-room, which was also the sitting-room, sewing.
She worked, after dressing, to arrange a little breakfast for herself,
and then advised with Minnie as to which way to look. The latter had
changed considerably since Carrie had seen her. She was now a thin,
though rugged, woman of twenty-seven, with ideas of life coloured by her
husband's, and fast hardening into narrower conceptions of pleasure and
duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth. She
had invited Carrie, not because she longed for her presence, but because
the latter was dissatisfied at home, and could probably get work and pay
her board here. She was pleased to see her in a way but reflected her
husband's point of view in the matter of work. Anything was good enough
so long as it paid--say, five dollars a week to begin with. A shop girl
was the destiny prefigured for the newcomer. She would get in one of the
great shops and do well enough until--well, until something happened.
Neither of them knew exactly what. They did not figure on promotion.
They did not exactly count on marriage. Things would go on, though, in a
dim kind of way until the better thing would eventuate, and Carrie
would be rewarded for coming and toiling in the city. It was under such
auspicious circumstances that she started out this morning to look for
work.

Before following her in her round of seeking, let us look at the
sphere in which her future was to lie. In 1889 Chicago had the peculiar
qualifications of growth which made such adventuresome pilgrimages even
on the part of young girls plausible. Its many and growing commercial
opportunities gave it widespread fame, which made of it a giant
magnet, drawing to itself, from all quarters, the hopeful and the
hopeless--those who had their fortune yet to make and those whose
fortunes and affairs had reached a disastrous climax elsewhere. It was
a city of over 500,000, with the ambition, the daring, the activity of
a metropolis of a million. Its streets and houses were already