was her daily task.

"How far does she go to market?"

"Over to First Avenue."

"Isn't that pretty far for a small girl to carry such a heavy load?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind it. All the errand-girls are tickled to death to
get the job. The grocers pay them ten per cent. commission on all they
buy."

It lacked but a few minutes of twelve when the child returned, panting
under her burden.

"How much did you clear to-day?" somebody asked.

"Twenty-one cents," the child answered, blushing as red as the poppies.

When Miss Higgins slipped her tall, light figure into her stylish jacket
and began to pin on her hat it was always a sign that the lunch-hour had
come. One hundred and twenty girls popped up from their hiding-places
behind the hedges, which had grown to great height since morning. In a
trice spaces were cleared on the tables. Cups and saucers and knives and
forks appeared as if by magic. In that portion of the room where the
crimping-machines stood preparations for cooking commenced. The pincers
and tongs of the rose-makers, and the pressing-molds of the
leaf-workers, were taken off the fires, and in their place appeared
stew-pans and spiders, and pots and kettles. Bacon and chops sputtered,
steak sizzled; potatoes, beans, and corn stewed merrily. What had been
but lately a flower-garden, by magic had become a mammoth kitchen filled
with appetizing sounds and delicious odors. White-aproned cooks scurried
madly. It was like a school-girls' picnic. As they moved about I noticed
how well dressed and neat were my shop-mates in their white shirt-waists
and dark skirts. Indeed, in the country village I had come from any one
of them would have appeared as the very embodiment of fashion.

Cooked and served at last, we ate our luncheon at leisure, and with the
luxury of snowy-white table-cloths and napkins of tissue-paper, which
needs of the workroom were supplied in prodigal quantities.

During this hour I heard a great deal about the girls and their work.
They told me, as they told all new-comers, of the wonderful rise of Miss
Higgins, who began as a table-worker at three and a half dollars a week,
and was now making fifty dollars. They told me of her rise from the best
rose-maker in New York to designer and forewoman. They dwelt on her
kindness to everybody, discussed her pretty clothes, and wondered which
of her beaux she was going to marry.

All afternoon I "slipped up" poppies. At five Miss Higgins came to t