nd
the sting of the truth remain.

Mary knew this--and Beatrice knew that she did. So trying to make
herself as formidable as a bunch of nettles Mary took heed to answer:

"I'm afraid you have been reading novels--the ones where the business
woman grows paler and more interesting looking each day and somehow
happens to be wearing a tempting little chiffon frock when the firm
fails and the young and handsome junior partner takes refuge in her
office and proceeds to brandish a gun and say farewell to the world.
You see, you don't come down to play with us enough to know what
prosaic rows there are over pencil sharpeners or who has spirited away
the drinking cup or why the window must be six inches from the top
because So-and-so has muscular rheumatism. I don't think you are fair,
Mrs. O'Valley, and I'm going to risk being quite unpopular by telling
you that you have no right to say such things even in jest."

Mary's eyes were very honest and her face seemed even firmer of chin
as she leaned her elbows on her desk, looking up at this pretty
figurine in satin and plumes.

"Do you fancy it is any fun to go to work at thirteen or fourteen? To
rush through breakfast to stand in a crowded car, to have to make your
heart very small as the Chinese say, in order to appreciate the
pennies and keep them until they become dollars--when all of you longs
to play Lady Bountiful? To rub elbows with untruthful mischief-makers,
coarse-mouthed foremen, impossible young fools who wish to flirt with
you and whom you do not dare to rebuke too sharply; to take your
hurried noon hour with little food and less fresh air and come back to
the daily grind; to walk home or hang on to the tag end of a
street-car strap and finally get to your room or your home so tired in
body and mind that you wish you had no soul, protesting faintly
against girls and women having to be in business?

"No, I don't think you do realize. Or to run errands icy-cold days,
down slushy streets or slippery hills? To carry great bundles of
such daintiness as you are wearing and leave them at the doors of
big houses such as your own, numbed, hungry, envious--and not
understanding the wherefore of it? To catch glimpses of warm halls,
the sound of a piano playing in a flower-scented salon, to see girls
your own age in dainty silk dresses sitting in the window and looking
at you curiously as you go down the steps? Oh, I could tell you a
great deal more, Mrs. O'Valley."

"W