"Evie--well I'm worried about Evie. She sits and broods--there's no other word for it--by the hour, and she used to be such a bright, cheerful girl. I wonder sometimes if it is through her working at the drug stores. Being attached to medicines in a manner of speaking, you're bound to hear awful stories--people's insides and all that sort of thing. It is depressing for a young girl. Christina says she talks in her sleep and moans and tosses about. It can't be over a young man, or she'd bring him home. I asked her the other day--I think a girl's best friend is her mother--and all I got was, 'Oh shut up, mother'. In my young days I wouldn't have dared speak to my mother like that, but girls have changed. They want to go to business, cashiering and typewriting, and such nonsense. I went out to service when I was sixteen and was first parlormaid before I was twenty. But talk to these girls about going into domestic service and they laugh at you." A silence followed which Sault felt it was his duty to break. "I suppose they do. Life is very hard on women, even the most favored of women. I hardly blame them for getting whatever happiness they can." "Happiness!" scoffed Mrs. Colebrook, shifting the saucepan to the hob, "it all depends on what you call 'happiness'. I don't see much happiness in standing in a draughty shop taking money all day and adding up figures and stamping bills! Besides, look at the temptation. She meets all kind of people--" "I think I'll go upstairs to my room, Mrs. Colebrook. I want to do a little work." "You're a worker," said Mrs. Colebrook admiringly, "I'll call you when supper is ready." "May I walk in to see Christina?" He asked permission in the same words every night and received the same answer. "Of course you can; you need never ask, Mr. Sault. She'll be glad to see you." At the head of the narrow stairway Sault knocked on a door and a cheerful voice bade him come in. It was a small room containing two beds. That which was nearest the window was occupied by a girl whose pallor was made more strangely apparent by a mop of bright red hair. Over her head, and hooked to the wall, was a kerosene lamp of unusual design and brilliance. She had been reading and one white hand lay over the open page of a book by her side. Sault looked up at the lamp, touched the button that controlled the light and peered into the flame. "Working all right?" "Fine," she said enthusiastically, "You're a brick, Ambrose, to make it. I had no idea you could do anything like that. Mother won't touch it; the thinks it will explode." "It can't explode," he said, shaking his head. "Those vapor gas lamps are safe, unless you fool with them. Have it put outside the door in the morning and I'll fill it. Well, where have you been today, Christina?"