guest to
go to a pantry at will, whatever the force of her brightness, I followed
Miss McCray about the boat. It was as if the hotel belonged to the girls,
while in the Christian homes it had been as if everything belonged, not
to the girls, but to benevolent though carefully possessive Christians.
Miss McCray praised highly the manager and his wife.

"About twenty men and boys stay on a yacht anchored right out here. They
board on this boat, and go to their own boat when the whistle blows at
ten o'clock," she continued, leading me to the smoking-room, where she
introduced a number of very young gentlemen reading magazines and
knocking about gutturally together. They, too, seemed proud of their
position as boarders, proud of the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel. They were
nice, boyish young fellows, who might have been young mechanicians.

She showed me the top deck with especial satisfaction as we came out into
the fresh, rainy air. The East River shipping and an empty recreation
pier rose black on one side, with the water sparkling in jetted
reflection between; and on the other quivered all the violet and silver
lights of the city. There were perhaps half a dozen tents pitched on
deck.

"Some of the girls sleep outdoors up here," said Miss McCray in her
gentle voice. "They like it so, they do it all winter long. Have plenty
of cover, and just sleep here in the tents. Oh, we all like it! Some of
the men that were here first have married; and they like it so well, they
keep coming back here with their wives to see us. It's so friendly," said
the girl, quietly; "and no matter how tired I am when I come here in the
evening, I sit out on the deck, and I look at the water and the lights,
and it seems as if all my cares float away."

The good humor of the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel, its rag-time, its boarders
from the yacht, the charm of the row of tents with the girls in them
sleeping their healthful sleep out in the midst of the river wind, the
masts, the chimneys, stars, and city lights, all served to deepen the
impression of the lack of normal pleasure in most of the shop-girls'
lives.

This starvation in pleasure, as well as low wages and overwork, subjects
the women in the stores to a temptation readily conceivable.

The girls in the stores are importuned, not only by men from without
these establishments, but also, to the shame of the managements, by men
employed within the stores.

The constant close presence of this gul