Knowledge to Ike was sacred, and the imparting of it almost a religious rite. He frowned down all flippancy on the part of his new pupil, and demanded of her the same diligence and perseverance he exacted of himself. He not only taught her to manipulate the type-writer, but put her through an elementary course of stenography as well. "Certainly you can learn it," he said sternly at her first sign of discouragement. "I got that far in my second lesson. Haven't you got any brains?" Nance by this time was not at all sure she had, but she was not going to let Ike know it. Stung by his smug superiority, she often sat up far into the night, wrestling with the arbitrary signs until Uncle Jed, seeing her light under the door, would pound on the wall for her to go to bed. She saw little of Dan Lewis these days. The weather no longer permitted them to meet in Post-Office Square, and conditions even less inviting kept them from trying to see each other in Snawdor's kitchen. Sometimes she would wait at the corner for him to come home, but this had its disadvantages, for there was always a crowd of loafers hanging about Slap Jack's, and now that Nance was too old to stick out her tongue and call names, she found her power of repartee seriously interfered with. "I ain't coming up here to meet you any more," she declared to Dan on one of these occasions. "I don't see why we can't go to Gorman's Chili Parlor of an evening and set down and talk to each other, right." "Gorman's ain't a nice place," insisted Dan. "I wish you'd come on up to some of the church meetings with me. I could take you lots of times if you'd go." But Nance refused persistently to be inveigled into the religious fold. The very names of Epworth League, and prayer meeting made her draw a long face. "You don't care whether we see each other or not!" she accused Dan, hotly. "I do," he said earnestly, "but it seems like I never have time for anything. The work at the factory gets heavier all the time. But I'm getting on, Nance; they give me another raise last month." "Everybody's getting on," cried Nance bitterly, "but me! You and Ike and Birdie! I work just as hard as you all do, and I haven't got a blooming thing to show for it. What I make sewing pants don't pay for what I eat. Sometimes I think I'll have to go back to the finishing room." "Not if I can help it!" said Dan, emphatically. "There must be decent jobs somewhere for girls. Suppose I take you out to Mrs. Purdy's on Sunday, and see if she knows of anything. She's all the time asking me about you."