resentment. Sometimes, of course, they merely aroused vague
suspicions. Two or three times she accepted such offers. The result
always followed that she left the place, hurriedly, and sought
elsewhere, trudging through long streets of mercantile establishments
and factories, looking at signs displayed on bits of swinging
cardboard or pasted to dingy panes.

Throughout this experience, however, she managed to escape absolute
want. She discovered the many mysteries which, once revealed, permit
of continued existence of a sort. The washing in a small room, that
had to be done on a Sunday; the making of small and unnutritious
dishes on a tiny alcohol stove; the reliance on suspicious eggs and
milk turned blue; the purchase of things from push-carts. She envied
the girls who knew stenography and typewriting, and those who were
dressmakers and fitters and milliners, all of which trades necessitate
long apprenticeship. The quiet life at home had not prepared her to
earn her own living. It was only after the mother's death that an
expired annuity and a mortgage that could not be satisfied had sent
her away from her home, to become lost among the toilers of a big
city.

For a year she had worked, and her clothing was mended to the verge of
impending ruin, and her boots leaked, and she had grown thin, but life
still held out hope of a sort, a vague promise of better things, some
day, at some dim period that would be reached later, ever so much
later, perhaps. For she had still her youth, her courage, her
indomitable tendency towards the things that were decent and honest
and fair.

At last she got a better position as saleswoman in one of the big
stores, whereupon her sky became bluer and the world took on rosier
tints. She was actually able to save a little money, cent by cent and
dime by dime, and her cheerfulness and courage increased apace.

It was at this time that typhoid struck her down and the big hospital
saw her for the first time. For seven long weeks she remained there,
and when finally she was able to return to the great emporium she
found that help was being laid off, owing to small trade after the
holidays. She sought further but the same conditions prevailed and she
was thankful to find harder and more scantily paid work in another
factory, in which she packed unending cases with canned goods that
came in a steady flow, over long leather belts.

So she became thinner again, and wearier, but held on, knowing