As Walter had foretold, she found constant temptation to neglect her study. She resisted it bravely. But when the "knee-pant operatives," whom she had organized, went out, she could not find heart for books. She gave all her time to the strike. It was only a three weeks' interruption. But the next year the buttonhole workers were out for two solid months, the hottest of the year--and lost. It was Yetta's first defeat. The last weeks had been a nightmare. Children had died of hunger. Some older women had hanged themselves. When at last it was over, Yetta dragged herself up to the Woman's Trade Union League and wrote out her resignation. "What on earth do you mean?" Mabel asked. "Oh! I'm no good. I can't ever go down on the East Side again. I might see one of them. It's all my fault. I called them out. I promised them so much." The moment Yetta had left the office Mabel telephoned to Mrs. Karner at her country home at Cos-Cob-on-the-Sound. Yetta had followed Walter's advice in regard to Mrs. Karner, and a real friendship had grown up between them. Mabel did not understand why this blasé society woman, with her carefully groomed flippancy, cared for the very serious-minded young Jewess, but she knew that they frequently lunched together. So she told Mrs. Karner over the telephone how Yetta had broken down. On the window-seat of her room, Yetta cried herself to sleep,--the troubled, haunted sleep of pure exhaustion. She was waked at last from her nightmare by a pounding on her door. It was Mrs. Karner. "You poor youngster! I dropped into the office a moment ago to sign some papers for Mabel and she told me about your resignation. I'm so glad! Now you haven't any excuse not to visit me. I'm lonely out at Cos-Cob. The motor's at the door. Put on your hat." Before Yetta knew what was happening to her she was in the motor. In fifteen minutes they were out of the city, and Mrs. Karner put her arm about her. "It was such a very little they asked for," Yetta muttered. "Not so much as we vest-makers demanded." Mrs. Karner did not see fit to reply, and Yetta fell back into a sort of doze. At last they turned through a stone gateway into the Karners' place. She got only a hurried glance at the well-watered lawn and the open stretch of the Sound. She was rushed upstairs and to bed. In the morning Mrs. Karner would not let her get up. It was the first time Yetta had spent a day in bed. When she was allowed to get up, she found the estate a strange country to be explored. The greenhouses, the tame deer, the spotless stables, the dairy, the kennels, the boat-house, all were endlessly interesting to her. Interesting enough to make her forget for a while the horrors of New York. It was the third day that she made friends with the gardener, and after that she got up with the sun to help him harvest the poppies.