save her sister's life! She almost felt
that she hated all those smiling, well-dressed people who thronged the
streets. By the time she reached the store, poor Marcella's heart was
seething with misery and resentment.

Three years before, when Marcella had been sixteen and Patty nine,
their parents had died, leaving them absolutely alone in the world
except for their father's half-sister, Miss Gibson, who lived in
Canning and earned her livelihood washing and mending for the hands
employed in the big factory nearby. She had grudgingly offered the
girls a home, which Marcella had accepted because she must. She
obtained a position in one of the Canning stores at three dollars a
week, out of which she contrived to dress herself and Patty and send
the latter to school. Her life for three years was one of absolute
drudgery, yet until now she had never lost courage, but had struggled
bravely on, hoping for better times in the future when she should get
promotion and Patty would be old enough to teach school.

But now Marcella's courage and hopefulness had gone out like a spent
candle. She was late at the store, and that meant a fine; her head
ached, and her feet felt like lead as she climbed the stairs to her
department--a hot, dark, stuffy corner behind the shirtwaist counter.
It was warm and close at any time, but today it was stifling, and
there was already a crowd of customers, for it was the day of a
bargain sale. The heat and noise and chatter got on Marcella's
tortured nerves. She felt that she wanted to scream, but instead she
turned calmly to a waiting customer--a big, handsome, richly dressed
woman. Marcella noted with an ever-increasing bitterness that the
woman wore a lace collar the price of which would have kept Patty in
the country for a year.

She was Mrs. Liddell--Marcella knew her by sight--and she was in a
very bad temper because she had been kept waiting. For the next half
hour she badgered and worried Marcella to the point of distraction.
Nothing suited her. Pile after pile, box after box, of shirtwaists
did Marcella take down for her, only to have them flung aside with
sarcastic remarks. Mrs. Liddell seemed to hold Marcella responsible
for the lack of waists that suited her; her tongue grew sharper and
sharper and her comments more trying. Then she mislaid her purse, and
was disagreeable about that until it turned up.

Marcella shut her lips so tightly that they turned white to keep back
the impati