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 mirror
int