her charge, who was nowhere to be seen.
Nervous, yet sure that Hertha would appear in a moment, she stood by her
cab, refusing to get inside.

"I got ter go," cried the chauffeur.

"I've got to wait," said Miss Witherspoon emphatically, "until my
companion comes."

Without a word the man drove off to take his stand in the rear of the
line while another taxi swept up, gathered in a group of travelers, and
went on.

"How provoking," Miss Witherspoon cried. She was separated from her
luggage and from Hertha. Never was anything so stupid.

Suddenly some one spoke at her elbow. "The young lady asked me to give
you this."

It was Hertha's porter, holding out a note.

Miss Witherspoon opened it and read the few words written in the girl's
careful hand.

"Thank you so much for your kindness, but I have decided to stay in New
York. I think I shall prefer to be where no one knows anything about me.
I'm sorry I put you to so much trouble." And below, written more
hurriedly: "Don't worry over me, and thank you again."

"Where did she go?" Miss Witherspoon asked the boy, who was watching her
with interest.

"I don't know," he answered, "I put her on a street car."

"Here's your taxi again," called out the starter.

Miss Witherspoon was startled and indignant. She looked about as though
hoping by some miracle Hertha would appear at her side. Then,
appreciating the futility of attempting any search, she got into the
taxi with her bags and, chagrined and disappointed, was driven through
the crowded streets.

"What shall I say to them in Boston?" she asked herself.

II

KATHLEEN

CHAPTER XIII

Noise! Thundering, reverberating noise. Noise that never ceases, noise
that deadens the brain and makes the hand jerk in response to the jarred
nerves; always, day and night, throughout the length of the city
streets, the clamor of inanimate things.

In the morning when Hertha slipped to her seat, the last but one in the
fourth line, she started her own thundering whir. The forty machines,
all going at once, sounded like nothing so much as the great beetles
that flew about her southern home in the summer evenings. But the
beetles came but rarely and went with the withdrawal of the lamp, while
here in the workroom the drumming was incessant. Always it was hurrying
her, calling upon her to make better speed, to push the white fabric
more quickly that the needle might make a greater number of punctures to
the