"I want a waitress badly," said a troubled woman in a subdued whisper,
"but I really wouldn't dare take a girl without references. She might be a
thief, you know, and then--really, she doesn't look as if she was used to
houses like mine. I must have a neat, stylish-looking girl. No
self-respecting waitress nowadays would go out in the street dressed like
that."

All the eyes in the room seemed boring through the poor girl as she stood
trembling, humiliated, her cheeks burning, while horrified tears demanded
to be let up into her eyes. She held her dainty head proudly, and turned
away with dignity.

"However, if you care to try," called out the hawk, "you can register at
the desk and leave two dollars, and if in the meantime you can think of
anybody who'll give us a reference, we'll look it up. But we never
guarantee girls without references."

The tears were too near the surface now for her even to acknowledge this
information flung at her in an unpleasant voice. She went out of the
office, and immediately,--surreptitiously,--two women hurried after her.

One was flabby, large, and overdressed, with a pasty complexion and eyes
like a fish, in which was a lack of all moral sense. She hurried after the
girl and took her by the shoulder just as she reached the top of the
stairs that led down into the street.

The other was a small, timid woman, with anxiety and indecision written
all over her, and a last year's street suit with the sleeves remodelled.
When she saw who had stopped the girl, she lingered behind in the hall and
pretended there was something wrong with the braid on her skirt. While she