night when she returned to her forlorn boarding-house room. That
commonplace domestic interior of number 232 had more to do with
Ernestine Geyer's life than it would be easy to say. It was her dream,
her ideal of life as it should be--and almost never was.

Unconsciously it moved this solitary woman to listen favorably to the
advances of a man she met at her boarding place. He was not much of a
man--she knew that! A feeble body of a man, indeed, with a drooping,
sallow face, and as Ernestine shrewdly suspected, he was making less
money at the dry-goods shop where he worked than she made at the
laundry. But for a time they "went out together"--a better phrase than
became "engaged." Then Ernestine, with an unexpected keenness of vision
and readiness to recognize a fact, even if it hurt her pride, knew that
the man was marrying her to be taken care of. She had seen enough of
that sort of marriage and had no mind for it. If he had wanted her with
genuine passion, she would have lived with him--and gladly. But the
shame of it all was that he had no desire of any kind for her. And she
was not bad looking in spite of her deformity and her glasses. Her
large, regular face was full of intelligence, and her black hair was
thick and slightly curling. But no man wanted her, just for herself. She
looked the fact in the face--and moved to another boarding-house.

About that time another change took place in the laundry business. The
old proprietor sold out to two young men who knew little about the
business. They incorporated as the "Twentieth Century Domestic Laundry"
and left the management in Ernestine's competent hands. The old location
was bought for a loft building, and a new building to be wholly occupied
by the laundry business was put up farther north. Ernestine disliked
leaving her family, as she called "number 232," but she judged that even
they would not remain long after all their light had been cut off by the
loft building. Anyway she had no time for sentimental regrets, for the
business, with fresh blood and new capital, was growing past all belief.
"Everybody has to get washed some time," was one of Ernestine's sayings,
and it seemed as if a great many had to be washed by the Twentieth
Century Company. She was neck and neck with the expanding business, and
her salary went up rapidly until by the time she came into Milly's life
she was drawing five thousand dollars a year, and earning it all as the
responsible head of