ould not walk the streets all night. She entered the door-way under
the sign, and found her way up a filthy flight of stairs. At the top, a
man in a blue checked "jumper" was filling a lamp behind a high desk. To
him Minna applied.

"I should like," she faltered, "to have a room--a bed for the night. One
of those for fifteen cents will be good enough, I think."

"Well, this place is only for men," said the man, looking up from the
lamp.

"Oh," said Minna, "oh--I--I didn't know."

She looked at him stupidly, and he, with equal stupidity, returned the
gaze. Thus, for a long moment, they held each other's eyes.

"I--I didn't know," repeated Minna.

"Yes, it's for men," repeated the other. She slowly descended the
stairs, and once more came out upon the streets.

And upon those streets that, as the hours advanced, grew more and more
deserted, more and more silent, more and more oppressive with the
sense of the bitter hardness of life towards those who have no means of
living, Minna Hooven spent the first night of her struggle to keep
her head above the ebb-tide of the city's sea, into which she had been
plunged.

Morning came, and with it renewed hunger. At this time, she had found
her way uptown again, and towards ten o'clock was sitting upon a bench
in a little park full of nurse-maids and children. A group of the maids
drew their baby-buggies to Minna's bench, and sat down, continuing a
conversation they had already begun. Minna listened. A friend of one of
the maids had suddenly thrown up her position, leaving her "madame" in
what would appear to have been deserved embarrassment.

"Oh," said Minna, breaking in, and lying with sudden unwonted fluency,
"I am a nurse-girl. I am out of a place. Do you think I could get that
one?"

The group turned and fixed her--so evidently a country girl--with a
supercilious indifference.

"Well, you might try," said one of them. "Got good references?"

"References?" repeated Minna blankly. She did not know what this meant.

"Oh, Mrs. Field ain't the kind to stick about references," spoke up the
other, "she's that soft. Why, anybody could work her."

"I'll go there," said Minna. "Have you the address?" It was told to her.

"Lorin," she murmured. "Is that out of town?"

"Well, it's across the Bay."

"Across the Bay."

"Um. You're from the country, ain't you?"

"Yes. How--how do I get there? Is it far?"

"Well, you take the ferry at the foot of Market Street, and th