Perhaps one of the happiest of the privileged girls was the one who took
me to her room on a beautiful June day to show me her cedar chest, her
gowns and the gifts already beginning to come. _The_ day was near. The
young man whom she was to marry was honest and fine, in business with
his father and hoping to make the firm a greater success than ever, as
the years should pass. The girl was just twenty-one. After high school,
a mother who was not strong needed her help and she had made that home a
center of enjoyment for three years. Surrounded by the loving
appreciation of parents and brothers, her life was filled with
happiness. Now in a few days she would go across the street to the house
built for her and furnished simply and well, with the articles which he
and she had chosen on the long shopping tours during the months past.
She was in every sense a privileged girl.

The _other girl_ saw her married. She was looking forward to her own
wedding day but it seemed farther away than ever. She had no hope for a
house built for her, but she knew where there was a flat for rental
which she had mentally furnished many times that month. But they could
not afford it. They had added and subtracted and gone over the figures
again and again but it was of no use. He was manly and fine, he had hope
and ambition, but the clerkship was only fifteen dollars a week and he
had tried in vain for another position. Fifteen dollars a week would not
do in their city. Butter, eggs, coal, ice, milk and meat stood in the
way. So they were waiting and there were tears in her eyes at the
wedding of the privileged girl.

That day was a hard one for another girl. She read of the wedding--the
decorations, the gifts, the congratulations of friends--then putting
down the paper forced back the tears and went out to finish the shirt
waist she was making, for it must be ready to wear to the office in the