death with my own hands!"

The satin-tufted box she was working on dropped from her fingers and
clattered on the floor, bringing the forewoman down upon her with many
caustic remarks. When the flurry was over I assured her that I thought
Bessie fully capable of taking care of herself, although I had seen more
of the manager's advances than Eunice gave me credit for observing.

At last noon came, and with it our first half-holiday. With the first
shriek of the whistle we jumped up and began folding our aprons,
preparatory to rushing out to find Bessie.

"Where does she live?" asked Eunice.

I looked at her in blank amazement, for I didn't know. I had never even
heard the name of the street. I knew it was somewhere on the East Side;
that was all. In all our weeks of acquaintanceship no occasion had
arisen whereby Bessie should mention where she lived. I thought of
Rosenfeld's. Perhaps some one there might know, and we took a Broadway
car up-town. But Miss Higgins was away on her vacation, and none of the
girls who still remained in the flower-shop knew any more about Bessie's
whereabouts than I did. Thus it is in the busy, workaday world. Nobody
knows where you come from, and nobody knows where you go. Eunice
suggested looking in the directory; but as we found forty of the same
name, it seemed hopeless. I did happen to know, however, that her father
had once been a cutter or tailor; and so out of the forty we selected
all the likeliest names and began a general canvass. After five hours of
weary search, and after climbing the stairs of more than a score of
tenement-houses, without success, we turned at last into East Broadway,
footsore and dusty. In this street, on the fifth floor of a baking
tenement, we tapped at the door of Bessie's home. A little blonde woman
answered the knock, and when we asked for Bessie she burst into sobs and
pointed to a red placard on the door--the quarantine notice of the Board
of Health, which we had not seen. And then Bessie's mother told us that
four of her brood had been laid low with malignant diphtheria. The three
younger ones were home, sick unto death, but they had yielded to the
entreaties of the doctor and allowed him to take Bessie to Bellevue.
Thither we hurried as fast as the trolley would take us, only to find
the gates closed for the day. We were not relatives, we had no permits;
and whether Bessie were dead or alive, we must wait until visiting-hours
the next day to discover