real miracle of transfiguration. The whole air of intercourse was
changed. All the girls were gentle and dignified with each other.
Catriona's eyes sparkled with pleasure. Her careworn air was gone. She
was a child again. She had never had any physical loveliness before; but
on that night hundreds of passing shoppers looked with attention at the
delight and beauty of her face.

On the next day everything went on as before. The girls snapped at each
other and jostled each other. The beautiful manager swore. One girl came,
looking so ill that Miss Johnson was terrified.

"Can't you stop, Kitty? You look so sick. For heaven's sake, go home and
rest."

"I can't afford to go home."

Cross and snappish as the girls were, they managed to spare Kitty, and to
stand in front of her to conceal her idleness from the floor-walker, and
give her a few minutes' occasional rest sitting down. She went through
the first hours of the morning as best she might, though clearly under
pressure of sharp suffering. But at about ten the floor-walker, for whom
it must be said that he was responsible for the sales and general
presentability of the department, saw her sitting down. "Why aren't you
busy?" he called. "Get up."

At midnight on Christmas eve, as the still crowd of girls walked wanly
out of the great store into the brilliant New York street, some one said,
"How are you, Kitty?"

She made no reply for a minute. Then she said wretchedly, "Oh--I hope