had been initiated
into a great society. I had been paid money for the labor of my hands!
The girl who roomed next to me had helped me to get the position. I was
not without associates. There were twenty-five girls besides myself who
carried away in their clothes each morning the odor of Mrs. Plummet's
soup-stock. Mrs. Plummet let rooms to girls only, and only rooms. We
didn't board with Mrs. Plummet. I wondered how she and old Mr. Plummet
ever consumed, alone, so much lamb broth.

For a fortnight I was a model for trying on suits in a down-town
wholesale house; several times the Y. W. C. A. found opportunities for
me to play accompaniments; in October when the suffrage activities began
I was able to pick up a few crumbs of work in the printing office of one
of their papers. But such a thing as permanent employment became a
veritable will-o'-the-wisp. I was strong and willing, and yet I could
not--absolutely _could not_--support myself. I tried writing fiction. I
had always yearned to be literary, but the magazines sent all my stuff
back. I tried sewing in a dressmaker's shop, but after three days the
Madam announced that her shop would be closed during August, the dull
season. She had hired me simply to rush a mourning order. From one thing
to another I went, becoming more and more disheartened as fall
approached, and my stock of clothes and jewelry, on the proceeds of
which I was living, became lower and lower. My almost empty trunk
stared at me forlornly from its corner; it foretold failure. What should
I do when the last little frumpery of my old life had been turned into
money to support my new one? To whom turn? I could not ask for help from
those who had admonished and criticized. I had written Lucy weekly that
I was prospering. I could not acknowledge failure even to her. I bent
every nerve to the effort.

One day in a magazine that some one had discarded in a subway train I
ran across an advertisement for "a young lady of education and good
family, familiar with social obligations, to act as a private secretary
to a lady in a private home." I answered that advertisement. I had
answered dozens similar before. This, like the others no doubt, would
end in failure. But I couldn't sit and fold my hands. I must keep on
trying. I answered it--and six others at the same time. Of the seven I
had a reply only from the one mentioned above.

It was a unique reply. It was typewritten. "If still interested in the
position