She was led to a seat in a quiet corner of the hall, where Miss Walton, sitting down beside her, took up a hat, and without speaking once during the operation, wired it with rapid fingers, Brownie watching intently meanwhile. “Can you do it?” she asked, curtly, when she had finished. “I can try,” the young girl answered, with a little sigh, longing to ask a few questions, yet not possessing the courage to do so of the forbidding-looking personage at her side. And now the wearisome, lonely task of earning her own living was begun. Her heart ached with a sense of utter desolation as she sat there, vainly trying to imitate Miss Walton’s example of wiring a hat. She felt more utterly alone among these hundred girls than she had done the night before in her quiet room at the hotel. The wire hurt her delicate fingers, the needle, instead of going to its appointed place, often slipped and pierced their rosy tips, and the crimson drops would ooze forth, causing her to lay aside the work and wrap the wounded members in her handkerchief until they ceased to bleed, lest they should stain the hat. One sad-looking girl on her left, had, without appearing to do so, been watching her ineffectual efforts with a great deal of sympathy. When at length, after running her needle half its length under her finger-nail, Brownie laid down her work in despair, she turned kindly toward her and said, with a smile: “The work is new to you, isn’t it?” “Yes,” Brownie replied, looking up at the sweet tones, and much comforted by them; “and I am afraid I shall never learn. I am so awkward.” “Oh, yes, you will. We were all so at the beginning.” “Were you? Then I’ll try again,” she said, brightening instantly. It was a real comfort to her to know that she was not quite such a goose as she had thought herself, after all. “Perhaps if I show you how to hold the hat, and just how to set the needle, you would get on faster,” said the strange girl, laying down her work, and holding out her hand for Brownie’s. It was even so. She was very quick in her motions, and apt to learn, and after a while she found she could wire a hat in ten minutes, when at first it had taken her more than double that time. But the confinement—the close, hot room, the noise of distant machinery, and incessant chatter of the girls around her, began to wear upon her. Her head throbbed and ached, as did also her arms and back, from their accustomed work, and she grew so tired and nervous that it seemed to her when night came as if her brain were turned. Wearily and sorrowfully she wended her way back to the hotel where she had stopped the night before, and threw herself upon her bed, too thoroughly worn out to even heed the demands of hunger. But her strong spirit conquered at last, and, rising, she bathed her face and head, rearranged her toilet, put on her hat again, and went down to the office to settle her bill at the hotel.