"If you don't find a place to go, why not come in with me? I've
got only a very little bit of a room, but it's as big and a lot
cleaner than any you'll find with the factory girls."

"But I haven't any money," said Susan regretfully. "And I
couldn't take anything without paying."

"You could pay two dollars and a half a week and eat in with us.
We couldn't afford to give you much for that, but it'd be better
than what you'd get the other way."

"But you can't afford to do that."

The restaurant girl's mind was aroused, was working fast and
well. "You can help in the restaurant of evenings," she promptly
replied. "I'll tell ma you're so pretty you'll draw trade. And
I'll explain that you used to go to school with me--and have
lost your father and mother. My name's Etta Brashear."

"Mine's--Lorna Sackville," said Susan, blushing. "I'll come after
a while, and we'll talk about what to do. I may not get a place."

"Oh, you'll get it. He has hard work finding girls. Factories
usually pay more than stores, because the work's more looked
down on--though Lord knows it's hard to think how anything could
be more looked down on than a saleslady."

"I don't see why you bother about those things. What do they matter?"

"Why, everybody bothers about them. But you don't understand.
You were born a lady, and you'll always feel you've got social
standing, and people'll feel that way too."

"But I wasn't," said Susan earnestly. "Indeed, I wasn't. I was
born--a--a nobody. I can't tell you, but I'm just nobody. I
haven't even got a name."

Etta, as romantic as the next young girl, was only the more
fascinated by the now thrillingly mysterious stranger--so
pretty, so sweet, with such beautiful manners and strangely
outcast no doubt from some family of "high folks." "You'll be
sure to come? You won't disappoint me?"

Susan kissed Etta. Etta embraced Susan, her cheeks flushed, her
eyes brilliant. "'I've taken an awful fancy to you," she said.
"I haven't ever had an intimate lady friend. I don't care for
the girls round here. They're so fresh and common. Ma brought me
up refined; she's not like the ordinary working-class woman."

It hurt Susan deeply--why, she could not have quite
explained--to hear Etta talk in this fashion. And in spite of
herself her tone was less friendly as she said, "I'll come when
I find out."

CHAPTER XIX

IN the office of the factory Susan found the man Etta describe