home. She gained
some inkling of the character of Hanson's life when, half asleep, she
looked out into the dining-room at six o'clock and saw him silently
finishing his breakfast. By the time she was dressed he was gone, and
she, Minnie, and the baby ate together, the latter being just old enough
to sit in a high chair and disturb the dishes with a spoon. Her spirits
were greatly subdued now when the fact of entering upon strange and
untried duties confronted her. Only the ashes of all her fine fancies
were remaining--ashes still concealing, nevertheless, a few red embers
of hope. So subdued was she by her weakening nerves, that she ate quite
in silence going over imaginary conceptions of the character of the
shoe company, the nature of the work, her employer's attitude. She was
vaguely feeling that she would come in contact with the great owners,
that her work would be where grave, stylishly dressed men occasionally
look on.

"Well, good luck," said Minnie, when she was ready to go. They had
agreed it was best to walk, that morning at least, to see if she could
do it every day--sixty cents a week for car fare being quite an item
under the circumstances.

"I'll tell you how it goes to-night," said Carrie.

Once in the sunlit street, with labourers tramping by in either
direction, the horse-cars passing crowded to the rails with the small
clerks and floor help in the great wholesale houses, and men and women
generally coming out of doors and passing about the neighbourhood,
Carrie felt slightly reassured. In the sunshine of the morning, beneath
the wide, blue heavens, with a fresh wind astir, what fears, except
the most desperate, can find a harbourage? In the night, or the gloomy
chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the
sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

Carrie went straight forward until she crossed the river, and then
turned into Fifth Avenue. The thoroughfare, in this part, was like a
walled canon of brown stone and dark red brick. The big windows looked
shiny and clean. Trucks were rumbling in increasing numbers; men and
women, girls and boys were moving onward in all directions. She met
girls of her own age, who looked at her as if with contempt for her
diffidence. She wondered at the magnitude of this life and at the
importance of knowing much in order to do anything in it at all. Dread
at her own inefficiency crept upon her. She would not know ho