ther manly and attractive.

The letter did not seem to require another answer. Madge stuffed it
under her pillow and spent a restless night. On the next day her head
was in a whirl of uncertainty. She went as far as the Grand Central
Station and inquired about the price of a ticket to Carcajou. The man
had to look for some time before he could give her the information. It
was very expensive. The few dollars in her pocket were utterly
inadequate to such a journey, and she returned home in despair.

On the Monday morning, at the usual hour, she started for the factory.
She was about to take the car when she turned back and made her way to
her room again. Her mind was made up. She would go!

She opened a tiny trunk she had brought with her from her country home
and searched it, swiftly, hurriedly. She was going. It would not do to
hesitate. It was a chance. She must take it!

She pulled out a little pocketbook and opened it swiftly. Within it
was a diamond ring. It had been given to her mother by her father, in
times of prosperity, as an engagement ring. And she had kept it
through all her hardships, vaguely feeling that a day might come when
it might save her life. She had gone very hungry, many a time, with
that gaud in her possession. She had felt that she could not part with
it, that it was something that had been a part of her own dear mother,
a keepsake that must be treasured to the very last. And now the moment
had come. She placed the little purse in her muff, clenched her hand
tightly upon it, and went out again into the street.

She looked out upon the thoroughfare in a new, impersonal way. She
felt as if now she were only passing through the slushy streets on her
way to new lands. From the tracks of the Elevated Road dripped great
drops of turbid water. The sky was leaden and an easterly wind, in
spite of the thaw, brought the chill humidity that is more penetrating
than colder dry frost.

She hastened along the sidewalk flooded with the icy grime of the last
snowfall. It went through the thin soles of her worn boots. Once she
shivered in a way that was suggestive of threatened illness and
further resort to the great hospital. Before crossing the avenue she
was compelled to halt, as the great circular brooms of a monstrous
sweeper shot forth streams of brown water and melting snow. Then she
went on, casting glances at the windows of small stores, and finally
stopped before a little shop, dark and uninvitin