ealized that perhaps she had been cruel.

"You needn't explain anything to me," replied Annie. "I'm not sore.
You came of a better family, and so it'll be harder for you to get
through life than it is for me."

As she spoke she had risen, and was buttoning her street wraps. Mary
Warren sat silent, the dark lenses of her glasses turned toward her
companion.

"Beggar man--thief!" she said at last. "I'd be robbing him, even
then!" She smiled bitterly. "Who'd take _me_?"

CHAPTER VI

RICH MAN--POOR MAN

When spring came above the icy shores of the inland seas, Mary Warren
had been out of work for more than three months. She was ill; ill of
body, ill of mind, ill of heart. Her splendid, resilient courage had
at last begun to break. She was facing the thought that she could not
carry her own weight in the world.

She sat alone once more one evening in the little room which after all
thus far she and Annie had been able to retain. Her oculist had taken
much from her scanty store of money. She held in her hand his last
bill--unpaid; and though she had paid a score of his bills, yet her
eyesight now was nearly gone. Her doctor called it "retinal failure";
and it had steadily advanced, whatever it was. Now she knew that there
was no hope.

She greeted the homecoming of her room-mate each nightfall with
eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in
another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her
nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late.

"Well, how are things coming along, Sis?" said she this evening on her
return, after she had thrown her wrap across a chair back. "How much
money have you got left? You look to me like you was counting it."

"Not very much, Annie--not very much. The doctor--you see, I can't
take his time and not pay him."

"You're too thin-skinned. What are doctors for?"

"But, Annie, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. That's the truth
about it--I'm scared!"

Her companion smiled, with her new slow and cynical smile. "Some of us
go to the lake--or to a man--or to men," said she, succinctly. "Look
over the stock of goods that's within your means. Bargains. Odds and
Ends."

"What could I _do_?"

"Suppose you got married to your gentle and chivalrous rancher out
West. Maybe you'd be able to stand it after a while, even if he dyed
his hair, or had his neck shaved round. Mostly they have false
teeth--be