den,
that later would shine resplendent in shop windows. Household
possessions came; graceful vases; plates of china rimmed with gold;
many-hued glass; tables and chairs with slender fragile legs; soft,
sumptuous rugs; heavy figures in white marble. Out of the boxes came gay
and intricate toys; dolls of varied ages but all newly born; brightly
illustrated picture books; tinkling music boxes. The shop windows each
day, in number beyond number, recorded the multitude of possessions that
make up the life of civilized man.

These possessions, however, were to be found in the city all the year,
though they grew more lovely and numerous at holiday time; but as
December advanced the trains brought in the special harbingers of
Christmas. From Maine came the fir-balsam, most fragrant of trees, some
tall and thickly boughed, others a child's measure in height;
ground-pine and laurel were brought from nearer by; while holly and
mistletoe traveled up from the South. All stood in display upon the
sidewalks in both the poor and the resplendent sections of the town.

When the noon hour came, and, seated by the machines, the other girls
opened their packages of luncheon and ate and visited with one another,
Hertha went out to walk. She did not spend more than ten minutes in the
clattering restaurant, but hurried on to the great department store
where the wealth of the world was on exhibit. There she would wander
each day, sometimes in toy-land, sometimes where the pianos were playing
or the victrolas singing, sometimes among the lovely dresses or under
the great rotunda where the silks shone in rainbow colors. At first she
was fearful lest she had no right to examine these wonderful things that
she could not purchase, but she soon found that no one was troubled by
her presence. Once in a while she would buy a little candy or a picture
card to feel the importance of a customer, but the very multiplicity of
the things about her and the simplicity and narrowness of her own life
made expensive purchases incredible. She smiled sometimes as she thought
of Miss Patty's suggestion of a large expenditure upon clothes. The soft
blue evening dress with the touch of yellow at the neck would have
become her; but Miss Patty would have recognized as soon as she, that
there was nothing in her present life to claim kinship with the gown. To
have worn it, or a cheap imitation of it, to some dance-hall would never
have entered the head of either of them