steady bearing over the morning's ups and downs. Under her load of
trials there is something big in the steady way she sails.

"Used to hard work?" she asks me.

"Not much," I answer; "are you?"

"Oh, yes. I began at thirteen in a bakery. I had a place near the oven
and the heat overcame me."

Her shoulders are bowed, her chest is hollow.

"Looking for a boarding place near the factory, I hear," she continues.

"Yes. You live at home, I suppose."

"Yes. There's four of us: mamma, papa, my sister and myself. Papa's
blind."

"Can't he work?"

"Oh, yes, he creeps to his job every morning, and he's got so much
experience he kind o' does things by instinct."

"Does your mother work?"

"Oh, my, no. My sister's an invalid. She hasn't been out o' the door for
three years. She's got enlargement of the heart and consumption, too, I
guess; she 'takes' hemorrhages. Sometimes she has twelve in one night.
Every time she coughs the blood comes foaming out of her mouth. She