nd around her
neck and waist, but her headdress is a tribute to feminine vanity!
Compactly screwed curl papers, dozens of them, accentuate the hard,
unlovely lines of her face and brow. Her features are coarse, heavy and
square, but her eyes are clear, frank and kind. She has an appealing,
friendly expression; Molly is a distinctly whole-souled, nice creature.
One elbow sinks in the bed and she cradles her crimped head in her
large, dirty hand.

"My, ef I could write as fast as you-all I'd write some letters, I
reckon. Ust ter write; like it good enough, tew; but I ain't wrote in
months. I was thinkin' th' other day ef I didn't take out the _pencile_
I'd dun forgit how to spell."

Without the window through which she gazes is seen the pale night sky
and in the heavens hangs the thread of a moon. Its light is unavailing
alongside of the artificial moon--an enormous electric light. This lifts
its brilliant, dazzling circumference high in the centre of the mill
street. I have but to move a trifle aside from the window coping's
shelter to receive a blinding blaze. But Molly has been subtle enough to
discover the natural beauty of the night. She sees, curiously enough,
past this modern illumination: the young moon has charm for her. "Ain't
it a pretty night?" she asks me. Its beauty has not much chance to
enhance this room and the crude forms, but it has awakened something
akin to sentiment in the breast of this young savage.

"I don't guess ever any one gets tired of hearing _sweet music_[7], does
you-all?"

[Footnote 7: The Southern term for stringed instruments.]

"What is the nicest music you have ever heard, Molly?"

"Why, a gui-taar an' a mandolin. It's so sweet! I could sit for hours
an' hyar 'em pick." Her curlpaper head wags in enthusiasm.

"Up to the hills, from whar I cum, I ust ter hyar 'em a serenadin' of
some gyrl an' I ust ter set up in bed and lis'en tel it died out; it
warn't for _me_, tho'!"

"Didn't they ever serenade you?"

"No, _ma'am_; I don't pay no 'tention to spo'tin'."

Without, the moon's slender thread holds in a silvery circle the
half-defined misty ball that shall soon be full moon. Thank heavens I
shall not see this golden globe form, wane, decline in this town,
forgotten of gods and men! But the woman at my side must see it mark its
seasons; she is inscrutably part of the colony devoted to unending toil!
Here all she has brought of strong youth shall fade and perish; womanly
sen