en
years old I'm keeping in school. She ain't going into a department
store, if I work my fingers to the bone." She said the last with a
fierce air that made her for a second really look younger. "Well,"
she went on. "I'll tell you, too. I had a good place for a number of
years, but the man died in September, and the man that took the
business put his sister in my place. Then I was out of a job. I
hadn't saved a cent, and I didn't know what I was going to do.
Mildred--that's my daughter--is big of her age and good-looking, and
she wanted to leave school and go to work, but I wouldn't let her.
Well, I studied up all the advertisements and I tried, and I couldn't
do a thing. Then I set my wits to work. I ain't one to give up in a
hurry; I never was. As I said before, I didn't have much money, but I
hire our little flat of a woman, and she's a good sort, and she's
willing to wait, and a month ago I took every cent I could raise and
I went through a course of treatment with a beauty-doctor. I had my
hair (it was turned some) dyed, and I was massaged until I felt like
a currant-bun, but I always had a good skin, and there was something
to work on, and I took my figure in hand; that wasn't very bad,
anyway, but I got new corsets, awful expensive ones, and had a tailor
suit made. I had to raise some money on a little jewelry I had, but I
made up my mind it was neck or nothing, and, sir, a month ago I got
that place in Adkins & Somers's at a thousand a year. They are good
men, too. You needn't think there's anything wrong." She looked at
them with an expression as if she was ready to spring at the
slightest intimation of distrust on their part. "It is only just that
people think they want young help and they are going to have it. I've
got the place and I'm in clover, and it's worth something looking so
much better, though it don't make much difference to me. All I care
about nowadays is my daughter."

The two men looked at the woman, Carroll with a courteous sympathy,
and the interest of an observer of human nature. She was of a
pronounced American type, coarse, vulgar, strident-voiced, smart,
with a shrewdly working brain and of an unimpeachable heart. She was
generosity and honesty itself, as she looked at the two men in a
similar strait to the one from which she had extricated herself.

The other man, who had a bitter, possibly a dangerous strain
developed by his misfortunes, laughed sardonically. "How long do you
think y