spent in
fruitless search for poor Eunice.

This hopeless quest, begun on Monday, was continued for three days in
the few hours that I could snatch between five o'clock, the closing-time
at the shop, and ten o'clock, the curfew hour at the "home." On
Wednesday the strain grew unbearable. All the associations of Wolff's
were tinctured with memories of the dead Bessie and the lost Eunice.
Under the counter, in the big pasteboard box, their checked-gingham
aprons were still rolled up just as they had left them, with the
scissors inside; and on the pine table under my eyes were their names
and mine, scrawled in a lead-pencil by Bessie's hand, and framed with
heavy lines. Their high stools, which were on either side of mine, had
been given over to two new-comers, also "lady-friends," who chewed gum
vigorously and discussed beaux and excursions to Coney Island with a
happy vivacity that made my secret misery all the harder to bear. That
night I went to the desk and drew my money, tucked the two aprons away
in a bundle with my own, and said good-by to Wolff's. The sum total of
my capital now amounted to five dollars; and with this I felt that I
could afford to spend the remainder of the week trying to find Eunice,
and trust to luck to get taken back at Wolff's the following Monday
morning.

After three days' systematic inquiry, I climbed the stairs to the
dormitory late on Sunday night, no wiser than I had been a week before.
My discouragement gave way to a thrill of joyous surprise when I
descried a long, thin form stretched under the gray blanket of Eunice's
cot. I sprang forward and laid an eager hand on the thin shoulder.

"Gr-r-r! Don't you try gettin' fresh, Susie Jane, er I'll smash yer
face!" snarled the angry voice of a new-comer, as she pulled the
coverlet up to her eyes and rolled over on the other side.

Monday morning I presented myself at the jewel-case factory, and asked
Miss Gibbs to take me back. But I was already adjudged a "shiftless
lot," not steady, and was accordingly "turned down." Then once more I
scanned the advertising columns.

"Shakers Wanted.--Apply to Foreman" was the first that caught my eye. I
didn't know what a "shaker" was, but that did not deter me from forming
a sudden determination to be one. The address took me into a street
up-town--above Twenty-third Street--the exact locality I hesitate to
give for reasons that shortly will become obvious. Here I found the
"Pearl Laundry," a broa