possibilities of this step, but opportunities were not many, and the
idle, pleasant years drifted by with no change. But Ellie Hawkes,
Grace's big sister, who had kept books in the box factory for three
years, was to be married now; a step down for Ellie--for her
"friend" was only Terry Castle, a brawny, ignorant giant employed by
the Express Company--but a step up for Grace. She would be a wage-
earner; her pretty, weak face grew animated at the thought, and her
shrill voice more shrill.

Martie Monroe had no real desire to work in the box factory, to walk
daily the ugly half mile that lay between it and her home, to join
the ranks of toilers that filed through the poorer region of town
every morning. But like all growing young things she felt a
desperate, undefined need. She could not know that self-expression
is as necessary to natures like hers as breath is to young bodies.
She could only grope and yearn and struggle in the darkness of her
soul.

She was nineteen, a tall, strong girl, already fully developed, and
handsome in a rather dull and heavy way. Her hands and feet were
beautifully made, her hair, although neglected, of a wonderful silky
bronze, and her skin naturally of the clear creamy type that
sometimes accompanies such hair. But Martie ruined her skin by
injudicious eating; she could not resist sweets; natural indolence,
combined with the idle life she led, helped to make her too fat. Now
and then, in the express office, in the afternoon, the girls got on
the big freight scales, and this was always a mortification to
Martie. Terry Castle and Joe Hawkes would laugh as they adjusted the
weights, and Martie always tried to laugh, too, but she did not
think it funny. Martie might have seemed to her world merely a