h must be best.
She said to herself that the river could never tell, and that there
would be rest and no more cold or hunger, and it was to the river that
she went at night as the Widow Maloney rose before her and said,--

"You'll come home wid me, me dear, an' no wurruds about it."

Lizzie looked at her stupidly. "You'd better not stop me," she said.
"I'm no good. I can't earn my living anywhere any more. I don't know
how. I'd better be out of the way."

"Shure you'll be enough out o' the way whin you're in the top o' the Big
Flat," said Mrs. Maloney. "An' once there we'll see."

Lizzie followed her without a word, but when the stairs were climbed and
she sunk panting and ghastly on one of the three chairs, it was quite
plain to the widow that more work had begun. That it will very soon end
is also quite plain to whoever dares the terrors of the Big Flat, and
climbs to the wretched room, which in spite of dirt and foulness within
and without is a truer sanctuary than many a better place. The army of
incompetents will very shortly be the less by one, but more recruits are
in training and New York guarantees an unending supply.

"Shure if there's naught they know how to do," says the widow, "why
should one be lookin' to have thim do what they can't. It's one thing
I've come to, what with seein' the goings on all me life, but chiefly in
the Big Flat, that if childers be not made to learn, whither they like
it or not, somethin' that'll keep hands an' head from mischief, there's
shmall use in laws an' less in muddlin' about 'em when they're most done
with livin' at all, at all. But that's a thing that's beyond me or the
likes o' me, an' I'm only wonderin' a thrifle like an' puttin' the
question to meself a bit, 'What would you be doin', Widdy Maloney, if
the doin' risted on you an' no other?'"

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

AMONG THE SHOP-GIRLS.

Why this army of women, many thousand strong, is standing behind
counters, over-worked and underpaid, the average duration of life among
them as a class lessening every year, is a question with which we can at
present deal only indirectly. It is sufficient to state that the retail
stores of wellnigh every order, though chiefly the dry-goods retail
trade, have found their quickness and aptness to learn, the honesty and
general faithfulness of women, and their cheapness essentials in their
work; and that this combination of qualities--cheapness dominating
all--has given them p