round of experience was gratifying. She could not begin to
believe that she would take the place, modest as her aspirations
were. She had been used to better than that. Her mere experience
and the free out-of-door life of the country caused her nature to
revolt at such confinement. Dirt had never been her share. Her
sister's flat was clean. This place was grimy and low, the girls
were careless and hardened. They must be bad-minded and hearted,
she imagined. Still, a place had been offered her. Surely
Chicago was not so bad if she could find one place in one day.
She might find another and better later.

Her subsequent experiences were not of a reassuring nature,
however. From all the more pleasing or imposing places she was
turned away abruptly with the most chilling formality. In others
where she applied only the experienced were required. She met
with painful rebuffs, the most trying of which had been in a
manufacturing cloak house, where she had gone to the fourth floor
to inquire.

"No, no," said the foreman, a rough, heavily built individual,
who looked after a miserably lighted workshop, "we don't want any
one. Don't come here."

With the wane of the afternoon went her hopes, her courage, and
her strength. She had been astonishingly persistent. So earnest
an effort was well deserving of a better reward. On every hand,
to her fatigued senses, the great business portion grew larger,
harder, more stolid in its indifference. It seemed as if it was
all closed to her, that the struggle was too fierce for her to
hope to do anything at all. Men and women hurried by in long,