out about some money you'd got from Gus; I never knew her so hot
before. You know she'll let him do anything but spend money on his
friends: the only reason she's decent to me now is that she knows I'm not
hard up.--He speculated for you, you say? Well, what's the harm? He had
no business to lose. He DIDN'T lose? Then what on earth--but I never
COULD understand you, Lily!"

The end of it was that, after anxious enquiry and much deliberation, Mrs.
Fisher and Gerty, for once oddly united in their effort to help their
friend, decided on placing her in the work-room of Mme. Regina's renowned
millinery establishment. Even this arrangement was not effected without
considerable negotiation, for Mme. Regina had a strong prejudice against
untrained assistance, and was induced to yield only by the fact that she
owed the patronage of Mrs. Bry and Mrs. Gormer to Carry Fisher's
influence. She had been willing from the first to employ Lily in the
show-room: as a displayer of hats, a fashionable beauty might be a
valuable asset. But to this suggestion Miss Bart opposed a negative which
Gerty emphatically supported, while Mrs. Fisher, inwardly unconvinced,
but resigned to this latest proof of Lily's unreason, agreed that perhaps
in the end it would be more useful that she should learn the trade. To
Regina's work-room Lily was therefore committed by her friends, and there
Mrs. Fisher left her with a sigh of relief, while Gerty's watchfulness
continued to hover over her at a distance.

Lily had taken up her work early in January: it was now two months later,
and she was still being rebuked for her inability to sew spangles on a
hat-frame. As she returned to her work she heard a titter pass down the
tables. She knew she was an object of criticism and amusement to the
other work-women. They were, of course, aware of her history--the exact
situation of every girl in the room was known and freely discussed by all
the others--but the knowledge did not produce in them any awkward sense
of class distinction: it merely explained why her untutored fingers were
still blundering over the rudiments of the trade. Lily had no desire
that they should recognize any social difference in her; but she had
hoped to be received as their equal, and perhaps before long to show
herself their superior by a special deftness of touch, and it was
humiliating to find that, after two months of drudgery, she still
betrayed her lack of early training. Remote was the