and knocks about town
with the boys. She is known as a "bum," has sacrificed name and
reputation and cannot remain in the mill.

We discussed one night the suitable age for a girl to become mistress of
herself. The boy of the household maintained that at eighteen a girl
could marry, but that she must be twenty-one before she could have her
own way. All the girls insisted that they could and did boss themselves
and had even before they were eighteen.

Two chums who boarded in my house gave a charming illustration of the
carelessness and the extravagance, the independence and love of it which
characterizes feminine America. One of these was a _deracinee_, a child
with a foreign touch in her twang; a legend of other climes in the
dexterity of her deft fingers; some memory of an exile from France in
her name: Lorraine. Her friend was a _mondaine_. She had the social
gift, a subtle understanding of things worldly, the _glissey mortel
n'appuyez jamais_ attitude toward life. By a touch of flippancy, an
adroit turn of mind, she kept the knowing mastery over people which has
mystified and delighted in all great hostesses since the days of Esther.

When the other girls waited feverishly for love letters, she was opening
a pile of invitations to socials and theatre parties. Discreet and
condescending, she received more than she gave.

As soon as the posters were out for a Tuesday performance of "Faust,"
preparations began in the household to attend. Saturday shopping and
supper were hurried through and by six o'clock Lorraine was at the
sewing machine tucking chiffon for hats and bodices. After ten hours'
work in the mill, she began again, eager to use the last of the spring
twilight, prolonged by a quarter moon. There was a sudden, belated gust
of snow; in the blue mist each white frame house glowed with a warm,
pink light from its parlour stove. Lorraine's fingers flew. A hat took
form and grew from a heap of stuff into a Parisian creation; a bolero
was cut and tucked and fitted; a skirt was ripped and stitched and
pressed; a shirt-waist was started and finished. For two nights the
girls worked until twelve o'clock so that when the "show" came they
might have something new to wear that nobody had seen. This must have
been the unanimous intention of the Perry populace, for the peanut
gallery was a bower of fashion. Styles, which I had thought were new in
Paris, were familiarly worn in Perry by the mill hands. White kid gloves