gth of the narrow stairway leading
from the cashier's cage. She became almost hysterical with glee as she
pictured him lying prone beneath the counter dedicated to lingerie,
draped with various garments from the pile that toppled over on him.
"Ruby Nash picked a brassiere off his whiskers!" Lise shrieked. "She
gave the pile a shove when he landed. He's got her number all right. But
say, it was worth the price of admission to see that old mutt when he
got up, he looked like Santa Claus. All the girls in the floor were
there we nearly split trying to keep from giving him the ha-ha. And Ruby
says, sympathetic, as she brushed him off, 'I hope you ain't hurt, Mr.
Waiters.' He was sore! He went around all afternoon with a bunch on his
coco as big as a potato." So vivid was Lise's account of this affair
which apparently she regarded as compensation for many days of
drudgery-that even Hannah laughed, though deploring a choice of language
symbolic of a world she feared and detested.

"If I talked like you," said Lise, "they wouldn't understand me."

Janet, too, was momentarily amused, drawn out of that reverie in which
she had dwelt all day, ever since Ditmar had left for Boston. Now she
began to wonder what would happen if she were suddenly to announce "I'm
going to marry Mr. Ditmar." After the first shock of amazement, she
could imagine her father's complete and complacent acceptance of the
news as a vindication of an inherent quality in the Bumpus blood. He
would begin to talk about the family. For, despite what might have been
deemed a somewhat disillusionizing experience, in the depths of his
being he still believed in the Providence who had presided over the
perilous voyage of the Mayflower and the birth of Peregrine White,
whose omniscient mind was peculiarly concerned with the family trees of
Puritans. And what could be a more striking proof of the existence of
this Providence, or a more fitting acknowledgment on his part of the
Bumpus virtues, than that Janet should become the wife of the agent of
the Chippering Mills? Janet smiled. She was amused, too, by the thought
that Lise's envy would be modified by the prospect of a heightened
social status; since Lise, it will be remembered, had her Providence
likewise. Hannah's god was not a Providence, but one deeply skilled in
persecution, in ingenious methods of torture; one who would not hesitate
to dangle baubles before the eyes of his children--only to snatch them
away a