"There, there! get along, you'll leave me not fit to be seen!" she
would say, and Jurilda would answer in that vicious whine of
light-haired women, too early overworked and overprolific: "Yes,
honey, let your aunt alone. She's too tiffy for poor folks like us";
and Maud would go home, loathing her lineage.

The girls she had known in her own quarter were by this time earning
their own living: some in the manufactories, in the lighter forms of
the iron trade, some in shops, and a few in domestic service. These
last were very few, for the American blood revolts against this easiest
and best-paid of all occupations, and leaves it to more sensible
foreigners. The working bees were clearly no company for this poor
would-be butterfly. They barely spoke when they met, kept asunder by a
mutual embarrassment. One girl with whom she had played as a child had
early taken to evil courses. Her she met one day in the street, and the
bedraggled and painted creature called her by her name.

"How dare you?" said Maud, shocked and frightened.

"All right!" said the shameless woman. "You looked so gay, I didn't
know."

Maud, as she walked away, hardly knew whether to be pleased or not.
"She saw I looked like a lady, and thought I could not be one honestly.
I'll show them!"

She knew as few men as women. She sometimes went to the social
gatherings affected by her father's friends, Odd Fellows' and Druids'
balls and the festivities with which the firemen refreshed themselves
after their toils and dangers. But her undeniable beauty gained her no