r dressed. Weak, irresponsible, hopelessly careless, and past
any power to undo these conditions, there was some instinct in the
untaught life that put her instantly on the defensive.

"I'm not good for much," she said, "but I'm too good for that. There's
nothing you could promise would get you your will and there won't be."

Naturally, as the siege declared itself a hopeless one, the manager
found it necessary to fill her place by some more competent hand. There
was an interval of waiting in which she pawned almost the last article
of clothing remaining that could be dispensed with, and then went into a
bakery, where the hours were from seven A. M. to ten P. M., sometimes
later. She was awkward at making change, but her gentle manners
attracted customers, and the baker himself soon cast a favorable eye
upon her, and speedily made the same proposition that had driven her
from her last employment. The baker's wife knew the symptoms, and on the
same day discharged the girl.

"I don't say it's your fault," she said, "but he's started about you,
and it's for your own good I tell you to go. The best thing for you is
to go back to your mother, or else take a place with some nice woman
that'll keep an eye to you. You'll always be run after. I know your
kind, that no man looks at without wanting to fool with 'em. You take my
advice and go into a place."

The chance came that night. The mistress of a cheap boarding-house in
East Broadway, her patrons chiefly young clerks from Grand and Division
Street stores, offered her home and eight dollars a month, and Lizzie,
who by this time was frightened and discouraged, accepted on the
instant. She was well accustomed to long hours, and she had never minded
standing as many of the girls did, her apprenticeship in the mill having
made it comparatively easy.

But the drudgery undergone here was beyond anything her life had ever
known. Her day began at five and it never ended before eleven. She slept
on an old mattress on the kitchen floor, and as her strength failed from
the incessant labor, lost all power of protest and accepted each new
demand as something against which there could be no revolt. There was
abundance of coarse food and thus much advantage, but she had no
knowledge that taught her how to make work easier, nor had her mistress
any thought of training her. She was a dish-washing machine chiefly, and
broke and chipped even the rough ware that formed the table furniture,