"I don't see," said Jane, after standing awkwardly for a moment in
meditation, "how a girl's goin' to be much of a woman that amounts to
anything one of these days if she's nothin' to do now but dirty work at
a hotel."
"Maybe she could change her work," suggested the lady.
Jane's lips parted into some hard and ugly lines, and she replied,--
"Some things is easier sayin' than doin'."
"Should you like a different position?" asked Mrs. Prency. "I'm sure it
could be had if people knew you wanted it. For instance, I need some
one every day for weeks to come to help my daughter and me with our
sewing and fitting. There are always so many things to be done as
winter approaches. I sometimes feel as if I were chained to my
sewing-machine, and have so much to do. But I'm afraid such work would
seem very stupid to you. It would mean sitting still all day, you know,
with no one to talk to but Eleanor and me."
Jane looked wonderingly at the two women before her. No one but them to
talk to! She never had imagined an opportunity to talk to such people
at all. She supposed all such women regarded her as part of the scum of
the earth, yet here they were speaking pleasantly to her,--Mrs. Prency,
a woman who naturally would fill the eye of an impulsive animal like
Jane,--Eleanor, the belle of the town,--two women whom no one could
look at without admiration.
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