niscence curved the girl's lips. "When they first locked me up," she
explained, without any particular evidence of emotion, "I used to sit
and hate you."

"Oh, of course!" came the caustic exclamation from Gilder.

"And then, I thought that perhaps you did not understand," Mary
continued; "that, if I were to tell you how things really are, it might
be you would change them somehow."

At this ingenuous statement, the owner of the store gave forth a gasp of
sheer stupefaction.

"I!" he cried, incredulously. "I change my business policy because you
ask me to!"

There was something imperturbable in the quality of the voice as the
girl went resolutely forward with her explanation. It was as if she
were discharging a duty not to be gainsaid, not to be thwarted by
any difficulty, not even the realization that all the effort must be
ultimately in vain.

"Do you know how we girls live?--but, of course, you don't. Three of us
in one room, doing our own cooking over the two-burner gas-stove, and
our own washing and ironing evenings, after being on our feet for nine
hours."

The enumeration of the sordid details left the employer absolutely
unmoved, since he lacked the imagination necessary to sympathize
actually with the straining evil of a life such as the girl had known.
Indeed, he spoke with an air of just remonstrance, as if the girl's
charges were mischievously faulty.

"I have provided chairs behind the counters," he stated.

There was no especial change in the girl's voice as she answered his
defense. It continued musically low, but there was in it the insistent
note of sincerity.

"But have you ever seen a girl sitting in one of them?" she questioned,
coldly. "Please answer me. Have you? Of course not," she said, after a
little pause during which the owner had remained silent. She shook
her head in emphatic negation. "And do you understand why? It's simply
because every girl knows that the manager of her department would think
he could get along without her, if he were to see her sitting down
----loafing, you know! So, she would be discharged. All it amounts to
is that, after being on her feet for nine hours, the girl usually walks
home, in order to save carfare. Yes, she walks, whether sick or well.
Anyhow, you are generally so tired, it don't make much difference which
you are."

Gilder was fuming under these strictures, which seemed to him altogether
baseless attacks on himself. His exasperation steadily