.

Etta roused herself, looked at her friend. And Susan saw what
Etta had not the courage to express--that she blamed her for not
having "made the best of it" and kept Ashbel. And Susan was by
no means sure that the reproach in Etta's eyes and heart were
not justified. "I couldn't do it, Etta," she said with a faint
suggestion of apology.

"Men are that way," said Etta sullenly.

"Oh, I don't blame him," protested Susan. "I understand. But--I
can't do it, Etta--I simply can't!"

"No," said Etta. "You couldn't. I could, but you couldn't. I'm
not as far down as Ashbel. I'm betwixt and between; so I can
understand you both."

"You go and make up with him and let me look after myself. I'll
get along."

Etta shook her head. "No," said she without any show of
sentiment, but like one stating an unalterable fact. "I've got
to stay on with you. I can't live without you. I don't want to
go down. I want to go up."

"Up!" Susan smiled bitterly.

Silence fell between them, and Susan planned for the new
conditions. She did not speak until Etta said, "What ever
will we do?"

"We've got to give up the furniture. Thank goodness, we've paid
only two-fifty on it."

"Yes, _it's_ got to go," said Etta.

"And we've got to pay Mrs. Quinlan the six we owe her and get
out tonight. We'll go up to the top floor--up to Mrs. Cassatt.
She takes sleepers. Then--we'll see."

An hour later they had moved; for Mrs. Quinlan was able to find
two lodgers to take the rooms at once. They were established
with Mrs. Cassatt, had a foul and foul-smelling bed and one-half
of her back room; the other half barely contained two even
dirtier and more malodorous cots, in one of which slept Mrs.
Cassatt's sixteen-year-old daughter Kate, in the other her
fourteen-year-old son Dan. For these new quarters and the right
to cook their food on the Cassatt stove the girls agreed to pay
three dollars and a half a week--which left them three dollars
and a half a week for food and clothing--and for recreation and
for the exercise of the virtue of thrift which the comfortable
so assiduously urge upon the poor.

CHAPTER XXI

EACH girl now had with her at all times everything she possessed
in the world--a toothbrush, a cake of castile soap, the little
money left out of the week's wages, these three items in the
pocket of her one skirt, a cheap dark blue cloth much wrinkled
and patched; a twenty-five cent felt hat, Susan's adorned