in it--I'm going to quit--I wish to God I was
dead! Standing on your feet all day till you're wore out for six dollars
a week--what's there in it?"--sob--"With that guy Walters who walks the
floor never lettin' up on you. He come up to me yesterday and says, `I
didn't know you was near sighted, Miss Bumpus' just because there was a
customer Annie Hatch was too lazy to wait on"--sob--"That's his line of
dope--thinks he's sarcastic--and he's sweet on Annie. Tomorrow I'm going
to tell him to go to hell. I'm through I'm sick of it, I tell
you"--sob--"I'd rather be dead than slave like that for six dollars."

"Where are you going?" asked Janet.

"I don't know--I don't care. What's the difference? any place'd be better
than this." For awhile she continued to cry on a ridiculously high,
though subdued, whining note, her breath catching at intervals. A feeling
of helplessness, of utter desolation crept over Janet; powerless to
comfort herself, how could she comfort her sister? She glanced around the
familiar, sordid room, at the magazine pages against the faded
wall-paper, at the littered bureau and the littered bed, over which
Lise's clothes were flung. It was hot and close even now, in summer it
would be stifling. Suddenly a flash of sympathy revealed to her a glimpse
of the truth that Lise, too, after her own nature, sought beauty and
freedom! Never did she come as near comprehending Lise as in such moments
as this, and when, on dark winter mornings, her sister clung to her,
terrified by the siren. Lise was a child, and the thought that she,
Janet, was powerless to change her was a part of the tragic tenderness.
What would become of Lise? And what would become of her, Janet?... So she
clung, desperately, to her sister's hand until at last Lise roused
herself, her hair awry, her face puckered and wet with tears and
perspiration.

"I can't stand it any more--I've just got to go away anywhere," she said,
and the cry found an echo in Janet's heart....

But the next morning Lise went back to the Bagatelle, and Janet to the
mill....

The fact that Lise's love affairs had not been prospering undoubtedly had
something to do with the fit of depression into which she had fallen that
evening. A month or so before she had acquired another beau. It was
understood by Lise's friends and Lise's family, though not by the
gentleman himself, that his position was only temporary or at most
probationary; he had not even succeeded to the rig