economically, as her inheritance was not large. The expenses of an attack
of typhoid one summer, and of an operation the next year, entirely
consumed it.

In the year she described, she had been a copyist in one of the most
exclusive shops on Fifth Avenue. The woman in charge was exceptionally
considerate, keeping the girls as long as possible. She used to weep
when she was obliged to dismiss them, for she realized the suffering and
the temptation of the long idle period.

However, the season had lasted only three or three and a half months at a
time, from February 1 to May 15, and from August 18 to December 4. During
the six busy weeks in the spring and the autumn, while the orders were
piling up, work was carried on with feverish intensity. The working day
lasted from eight-thirty until six, with an hour at noon for luncheon.
Many employees, however, stayed until nine o'clock, receiving $1, besides
30 cents supper money, for overtime. But by six o'clock Frances was so
exhausted that she could do no more, and she always went home at that
hour.

In addition to her thirty weeks in the Fifth Avenue order establishment,
Frances had two weeks' work in a wholesale house, where the season began
earlier; so that she had been employed for thirty-two weeks in the year,
and idle for twenty. She was a piece-worker and she had earned from $8 to
$14 a week.

The twenty idle weeks had been filled with continuous futile attempts to
find anything to do. Application at department stores had been
ineffectual, so had answered advertisements. She said she had lost all
scruples about lying, because, the moment it was known that she wanted a