upon a girl perhaps a year her senior. Her tones were gentle, with a certain lisping appeal, and her face, if not strong, was neither abnormal nor coarse. Outside a refuge uniform she would readily pass as pretty.

"I couldn't stomach it myself, at the start," she went on, without waiting for an answer, "but I got used to it. We all do. Why, the days I work in the laundry I'm half starved."

Jean stared.

"They make you do laundry work!"

"Sure. We all take a turn. Everything on the place is done by the girls, you know—washing, cooking, tailoring, gardening, and a lot besides."

Her auditor relapsed into gloomy silence, a new horror added to her plight. At home, even the factotum they styled the hired girl had been exempt from washing. A strapping negress had come in Mondays for that.

"I'm next door to you upstairs," pursued the new acquaintance, in her deprecating way. "My name is Amy Jeffries. What's yours?"

She gave it after a moment's debate. The old beloved "Jack" was at the tip of her tongue, but she suddenly thought better of it. After all, "Jean" would answer for this place. She regretted that in lieu of Fanshaw she could not use Jones, or Smith, or—master stroke of irony—the abominated Tuttle.

"Jean Fanshaw's a nice name," commented Amy sociably.

Dreading further catechising, Jean struck in with a question of her own.

"Why have those girls over there a better uniform and a table to themselves?" she demanded.

"They're high grade."

"What does that mean?"

"Six months without a mark." Amy Jeffries cast a look of envy upon the group at the side table. "I'd like awfully to be high grade. It must seem like living again to sit down to a tablecloth. I should like the cuffs and collars, too. I just love dress. When I leave here I think I'll go into a dressmaking establishment, or a milliner's."

Jean was reminded of something.

"Tell me how I can get out of here in a year and a half," she requested. "Somebody said it could be done."

Amy 

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