would have me, and it would be five dollars a
week for room, breakfast and dinner. And she would put me on the
right car and tell me just where to get off, and the landlady would
direct me to the Employment Agency later. Just as she was seeing me
to the street I spied the Buffalo in the offing, waving to me, and I
waved back, and he started briskly toward me.

"Who is that man?" the Stranger's Friend wanted to know. I said he
was a kind gentleman I had met on the train but I didn't know his
name. Well, the next thing I knew she had whirled me cleverly into an
eddy of crowd and thence into the Ladies' Waiting-Room and was
regarding me sternly. "We will wait here until he goes away. That is
the very _first_ thing to remember, my dear. Never talk to
strange men!" And I said, "Yes, ma'am, I will," and "No, ma'am, I
won't," and presently she reconnoitered and said that the coast was
clear, and put me on my car, with minute directions for finding my
new home.... It is easy and comforting to believe that there is,
literally, no place like home, no other place. I shall call my
landlady Mrs. Mussel,--it suits her so perfectly, the way she clings
to her drab background, and closes up with a snap at every approach.
I daresay she means well. It is necessary to believe that she does.
She states that she sets only a plain home table ... and there is a
sort of atmospheric menu card--coming events casting their savors
before, stale memories of the past....

She marched me straight off to the Intelligence Office. There was
nothing for me, but I signed up and am to be there at eight in the
morning. And now, unless I stop, I shall fall asleep and out of my
chair and dash my brains out on the deviled-ham carpet. The Laboring
Classes keep early hours.

G--N--

J.

Thereafter the bulletins came thick and fast to Hope House, always to the
two of them together, now addressed to Miss Ellis and then to the
Irishman. The second followed swiftly on the heels of the first.

_The Next Night._

I went early to the Intelligence Office. (_Intelligence!_) The other
Judy O'Gradys and I sat in waiting while our sisters under the skin,
the Colonel's ladies, looked us over. I registered for nursery
governess, Mother's Help, second maid, or companion, with Mrs.
Mussel and the S.F. for reference, but to-day all t