arned
four dollars and a half a week. Two of these were supposed to go into the
common fund, but there were clothes to buy; Lise loved finery, and Hannah
had not every week the heart to insist. Even when, on an occasional
Saturday night the girl somewhat consciously and defiantly flung down the
money on the dining-room table she pretended not to notice it. But Janet,
who was earning six dollars as a stenographer in the office of the
Chippering Mill, regularly gave half of hers.

The girls could have made more money as operatives, but strangely enough
in the Bumpus family social hopes were not yet extinct.

Sharply, rudely, the cold stillness of the winter mornings was broken by
agitating waves of sound, penetrating the souls of sleepers. Janet would
stir, her mind still lingering on some dream, soon to fade into the
inexpressible, in which she had been near to the fulfilment of a heart's
desire. Each morning, as the clamour grew louder, there was an interval
of bewilderment, of revulsion, until the realization came of mill bells
swinging in high cupolas above the river,--one rousing another. She could
even distinguish the bells: the deep-toned, penetrating one belonged to
the Patuxent Mill, over on the west side, while the Arundel had a high,
ominous reverberation like a fire bell. When at last the clangings had
ceased she would lie listening to the overtones throbbing in the air,
high and low, high and low; lie shrinking, awaiting the second summons
that never failed to terrify, the siren of the Chippering Mill,--to her
the cry of an insistent, hungry monster demanding its daily food, the
symbol of a stern, ugly, and unrelenting necessity.

Beside her in the bed she could feel the soft body of her younger sister
cuddling up to her in fright. In such rare moments as this her heart
melted towards Lise, and she would fling a protecting arm about her. A
sense of Lise's need of protection invaded her, a sharp conviction, like
a pang, that Lise was destined to wander: Janet was never so conscious of
the feeling as in this dark hour, though it came to her at other times,
when they were not quarreling. Quarreling seemed to be the normal
reaction between them.

It was Janet, presently, who would get up, shivering, close the window,
and light the gas, revealing the room which the two girls shared
together. Against the middle of one wall was the bed, opposite this a
travel-dented walnut bureau with a marble top, with an oval m