hings from
it, as though she were a little ashamed of her lunch. My moment of
vanity had passed. I went over to her, not knowing whether her
appearance meant a slipshod nature or extreme poverty. As we were both
new girls, there was no indiscretion in my direct question:

"Like your job?"

I could not understand what she answered, so I continued: "Ever worked
before?"

She opened her hands and held them out to me. In the palm of one there
was a long scar that ran from wrist to forefinger. Two nails had been
worn off below the quick and were cracked through the middle. The whole
was gloved in an iron callous, streaked with black.

"Does that look like work?" was her response. It was almost impossible
to hear what she said. Without a palate, she forced the words from her
mouth in a strange monotone. She was one of nature's monstrous failures.
Her coarse, opaque skin covered a low forehead and broad, boneless nose;
her teeth were crumbling with disease, and into her full lower lip some
sharp tool had driven a double scar. She kept her hand over her mouth
when she talked, and except for this movement of self-consciousness her
whole attitude was one of resignation and humility. Her eyes in their
dismal surroundings lay like clear pools in a swamp's midst reflecting
blue sky.

"What was you doing to get your hands like that?" I asked.

"Tipping shoe-laces. I had to quit, 'cause they cut the pay down. I
could do twenty-two gross in a day, working until eight o'clock, and I
didn't care how hard I worked so long as I got good pay--$9 a week. But
the employer'd been a workman himself, and they're the worst kind. He
cut me down to $4 a week, so I quit."

"Do you live home?"

"Yes. I give all I make to my mother, and she gives me my clothes and
board. Almost anywhere I can make $7 a week, and I feel when I earn that
much like I was doing right. But it's hard to work and make nothing. I'm
slow to learn," she smiled at me, covering her mouth with her hand, "but
I'll get on to it by and by and go as fast as any one; only I'm not very
strong."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Heart disease for one thing, and then I'm so nervous. It's kind of hard
to have to work when you're not able. To-day I can hardly stand, my
head's aching so. They make the poor work for just as little as they
can, don't they? It's not the work I mind, but if I can't give in my
seven a week at home I get to worrying."

Now and then as she talked in h