and filth, of hideous toil without hope.

"You'd better save your money to put in the millinery business
with me," Ida advised. "I can show you how to make a lot.
Sometimes I clear as high as a hundred a week, and I don't
often fall below seventy-five. So many girls go about this
business in a no account way, instead of being regular and
business-like."

Susan strove to hide the feelings aroused by this practical
statement of what lay before her. Those feelings filled her
with misgiving. Was the lesson still unlearned? Obviously Ida
was right; there must be plan, calculation, a definite line
laid out and held to, or there could not but be failure and
disaster. And yet--Susan's flesh quivered and shrank away.
She struggled against it, but she could not conquer it.
Experience had apparently been in vain; her character had
remained unchanged. . . . She must compel herself. She
must do what she had to do; she must not ruin everything by
imitating the people of the tenements with their fatal habit of
living from day to day only, and taking no thought for the
morrow except fatuously to hope and dream that all would be well.

While she was fighting with herself, Ida had been talking
on--the same subject. When Susan heard again, Ida was saying:

"Now, take me, for instance. I don't smoke or drink. There's
nothing in either one--especially drink. Of course sometimes
a girl's got to drink. A man watches her too close for her to
dodge out. But usually you can make him think you're as full
as he is, when you really are cold sober."

"Do the men always drink when they--come with--with--us?" asked Susan.

"Most always. They come because they want to turn themselves
loose. That's why a girl's got to be careful not to make a man
feel nervous or shy. A respectable woman's game is to be
modest and innocent. With us, the opposite. They're both
games; one's just as good as the other."

"I don't think I could get along at all--at this," confessed
Susan with an effort, "unless I drank too much--so that I was
reckless and didn't care what happened."

Ida looked directly into her eyes; Susan's glance fell and a
flush mounted. After a pause Ida went on:

"A girl does feel that way at first. A girl that marries as
most of them do--because the old ones are pushing her out of
the nest and she's got no place else to go--she feels the same
way till she hardens to it. Of course, you've got to get broke
into any