t those spangles, Miss Bart--every one of 'em sewed on crooked."

The tall forewoman, a pinched perpendicular figure, dropped the condemned
structure of wire and net on the table at Lily's side, and passed on to
the next figure in the line.

There were twenty of them in the work-room, their fagged profiles, under
exaggerated hair, bowed in the harsh north light above the utensils of
their art; for it was something more than an industry, surely, this
creation of ever-varied settings for the face of fortunate womanhood.
Their own faces were sallow with the unwholesomeness of hot air and
sedentary toil, rather than with any actual signs of want: they were
employed in a fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well
clothed and well paid; but the youngest among them was as dull and
colourless as the middle-aged. In the whole work-room there was only one
skin beneath which the blood still visibly played; and that now burned
with vexation as Miss Bart, under the lash of the forewoman's comment,
began to strip the hat-frame of its over-lapping spangles.

To Gerty Farish's hopeful spirit a solution appeared to have been reached
when she remembered how beautifully Lily could trim hats. Instances of
young lady-milliners establishing themselves under fashionable patronage,
and imparting to their "creations" that indefinable touch which the
professional hand can never give, had flattered Gerty's visions of the
future, and convinced even Lily that her separation from Mrs. Norma Hatch
need not reduce her to dependence on her friends.

The parting had occurred a few weeks after Selden's visit, and would have
taken place sooner had it not been for the resistance set up in Lily by
his ill-starred offer of advice. The sense of being involved in a
transaction she would not have cared to examine too closely had soon
afterward defined itself in the light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that, if
she "saw them through," she would have no reason to be sorry. The
implication that such loyalty would meet with a direct reward had
hastened her flight, and flung her back, ashamed and penitent, on the
broad bosom of Gerty's sympathy. She did not, however, propose to lie
there prone, and Gerty's inspiration about the hats at once revived her
hopes of profitable activity. Here was, after all, something that her
charming listless hands could really do; she had no doubt of their
capacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to advantage. An