y looking floorwalker, and put it to him. The floorwalker bent
his head, caught the word "food," swung about, and pointed over Jennie's
head.

"Grocery department on the seventh floor. Take one of those elevators
up."

Any one but a floorwalker could have seen the misery in Jennie's face.
But to floorwalkers all women's faces are horrible.

Jennie turned and walked blindly toward the elevators. There was no
fight left in her. If the floorwalker had said, "Silk negligees on the
fourth floor. Take one of those elevators up," Jennie would have ridden
up to the fourth floor, and stupidly gazed at pink silk and val lace
negligees in glass cases.

Tell me, have you ever visited the grocery department of a great store on
the wrong side of State Street? It's a mouth-watering experience. A
department store grocery is a glorified mixture of delicatessen shop,
meat market, and vaudeville. Starting with the live lobsters and crabs
you work your hungry way right around past the cheeses, and the sausages,
and the hams, and tongues, and head-cheese, past the blonde person in
white who makes marvelous and uneatable things out of gelatine, through a
thousand smells and scents--smells of things smoked, and pickled, and
spiced, and baked and preserved, and roasted.

Jennie stepped out of the elevator, licking her lips. She sniffed the
air, eagerly, as a hound sniffs the scent. She shut her eyes when she
passed the sugar-cured hams. A woman was buying a slice from one, and
the butcher was extolling its merits. Jennie caught the words "juicy"
and "corn-fed."

That particular store prides itself on its cheese department. It boasts
that there one can get anything in cheese from the simple cottage variety
to imposing mottled Stilton. There are cheeses from France, cheeses from
Switzerland, cheeses from Holland. Brick and parmesan, Edam and
limburger perfumed the atmosphere.

Behind the counters were big, full-fed men in white aprons, and coats.
They flourished keen bright knives. As Jennie gazed, one of them, in a
moment of idleness, cut a tiny wedge from a rich yellow Swiss cheese and
stood nibbling it absently, his eyes wandering toward the blonde gelatine
demonstrator. Jennie swayed, and caught the counter. She felt horribly
faint and queer. She shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them a
woman--a fat, housewifely, comfortable looking woman--was standing before
the cheese counter. She spoke to the chees