Who has not addressed envelopes? It proved to be piece-work in a well-lighted, comfortably heated loft. At five o’clock that afternoon I had finished one thousand envelopes and thereby earned one dollar and a quarter—it being three-line work. On leaving the building the problem of where to spend the night faced me. A thought of the municipal lodging-house for women again occurred to me, but recalling that I was a working woman, not an investigator, and as Polly Preston would know nothing about such a place, I pushed the suggestion aside. Returning to the Y. W. C. A., I meekly asked for a bed in a sixty-five-cent room. My roommate was an oldish young lady who confided to me that she had come from a small town in the Middle West to take a position with the Metropolitan Opera Company. She had no acquaintance with the manager or any member of the company. Indeed I could not learn that she had an acquaintance in New York City. Her confidence was nothing short of sublime. While she might not get a leading rôle, never having studied abroad, she assured me that she had a hunch that she would get an important part—far above the chorus. All the evening and far into the night, when she was not singing the latest ragtime she was crowing like a hen. She called it exercising her upper register. Having spent one year as a student in a conservatory of music I knew from experience the only thing to do was to let her find out conditions for herself. The following day by writing steadily from eight to six I managed to address fifteen hundred envelopes. The companionship of the six women who shared the long table with me was diverting. Before the day was half gone each of the five had confided to all within reach of her voice her personal history and reason for working. During the lunch-hour the sixth woman continued to write, nibbling from time to time at an apple and what appeared to be a slice of dry bread. Finally she inquired if I were married. “You’re lucky,” she congratulated me. “If I could make sure my four children would be took care of I’d put myself to sleep and never wake up.” “How about your husband?” was my horrified rejoinder. “He’s gone,” she replied with a quavering little chuckle. “When our fifth baby came he left.” After a pause she added: “Maybe he wouldn’t have gone if he’d a-knowd it was goin’ to die so soon.” Another pause. Then wistfully: “Maybe he would—never no countin’ on a man.” The next day at eleven the little manager informed us that having finished all the envelopes he would have no further need of our services until time to send out their spring catalogues. Having received a post-card from the department store telling me to report ready for work at eight-thirty the following Monday morning, this abrupt ending of my first job caused me no regret.