-and indeed I could scarcely stand--and with a
wave of her plump arm she brought me back to her desk.

"Why don't you stay here with me to-night?" she asked. "You needn't
mind; and if I was you I would do it and save my pennies and my tired
legs. You can have a bite of supper with me, and then bundle right off
to bed. You look clean tuckered out."

So to my fast-growing list of startling experiences I added a night in
the station-house; but a very quiet, uneventful night it was, because
the matron tucked me away in her own little room. That is, it was quiet
and uneventful so far as my surroundings were concerned, though I slept
little on account of my aching bones. All night I tossed, pain-racked
and discouraged; for, after all the long, hard day's work of the day
before, Phoebe's card had only checked one dollar and five cents, which
represented two persons' work. Such being the case, how could I expect
to grow sufficiently skilful and expeditious to earn enough to keep body
and soul together in the brief apprenticeship I had looked forward to?
Unable to sleep, I was up an hour earlier than usual, and after I had
breakfasted--again by the courtesy of the matron--I was off to work long
before the working-day began.

I had thought to be the first arrival, but I was not. A girl was already
bending over her paste-pot, and the revelers of the "Ladies' Moonlight
Pleasure Club" came straggling in by twos and threes. Some of the weary
dancers had dropped to sleep, still wearing their ball-gowns and
slippers and bangles and picture-hats, their faces showing ghastly white
and drawn in the mote-ridden sunbeams that fell through the dirty
windows. Others were busy doffing Cinderella garments, which rites were
performed with astounding frankness in the open spaces of the big loft.

"Oh, Henrietta, you had ought to been there," Georgiana gushed, dropping
her lace-trimmed petticoats about her feet and struggling to unhook her
corsets. "It was grand, but I'm tired to death; and oh, dear! I've
another blow-out to-night, and the 'Clover Leaf' to-morrow night!" With
a weary yawn, the society queen departed with her finery.

"You didn't go to the ball?" I suggested to the girl addressed as
Henrietta, and whom I now recalled as one who had worked frantically all
the day before.

"Me? No. I don't believe in dancing," she replied, without looking up.
"Our church's down on it. I came early to get ahead with my order. You
can do more wor