went all too quickly, and we were now entering
on the fourth. Plainly the season was drawing to its close. The orders
that had come pouring in from milliners and modistes all over the land
for six months were now dwindling daily. The superintendent and the
"boss" walked through the department every day, and we heard them talk
about overproduction. Friday the atmosphere was tense with anxiety. The
girls' faces were grave. Almost without exception, there were people at
home upon whom this annual "lay-off" fell with tragic force. I have not
talked with one of them who did not have to work, and they have always
some one at home to care for. A few were widows with small children at
home or in the day nursery. One can tell little, by their appearance,
about these secret burdens. Each girl wears a mask. The neat costume,
made with her own hands in midnight hours snatched from hard-earned
rest, is no evidence of extravagance, or even of comfortable
circumstances. It is only that manifestation of proper pride and
self-respect which the best type of wage-earning woman is never without.
If they sometimes talk happily about theaters and parties and beaux, if
occasionally there is a brief spell of innocent hilarity in the
workroom, it is only the inevitable and legitimate outcropping of
healthy and wholesome animal spirits, of a vigorous hope which not even
the hard conditions of life can crush.

On Saturday morning many of the girls sat idle. "Don't work too fast, or
you'll work yourself out of a job," one cried in jest; but the meaning
was one of dead earnest. And as the day passed the prophecy came true to
one after another. In the afternoon we made a feint of work by papering
wires and opening petals for those who were still busy. The hours passed
drearily. Miss Higgins was going over her pay-roll, checking off the
names of the girls who could make feathers as well as flowers. All
others were to be laid off indefinitely that night. We watched anxiously
for the moment, which was not far off.

"I hope Miss Higgins won't cry--she did last year. It breaks her up
terribly to let us off," somebody remarked.

"It's a long time to be idle--till September," I suggested to the girl
across the work-table. She looked up in surprise.

"Idle!" she exclaimed. "But we are never idle. We daren't. We get other
jobs."

"What?"

"Oh, everything: waitress in a summer boarding-house, novelty goods,
binderies, shirt-waists, stores, anything we