Frances did not mention this shortcoming of Miss Eppendorfer’s at home, and it was never openly referred to between the authoress and herself. But Miss Eppendorfer ceased to be so careful, she was even relieved that Frances knew her vice and that she didn’t have to live in fear of her discovering it. The whiskey came openly with the grocery orders, then vanished into her own room. She was never to be seen drinking it, but there were many mornings when she couldn’t be awakened till noon, and when she did get up, she would be in a state that wrung Frankie’s kindly heart. The poor shaky, weeping thing, moaning about her aching head, swallowing her dreadful “headache cures,” and waiting in agony till relief came.... Frances had to sit by her, holding her hand and trying to quiet and cheer her. She struggled against disgust, but in vain; she would reach the point where the whole affair seemed intolerable, and she was determined to go home, and then Miss Eppendorfer would suddenly change, get up in the morning, dress elaborately and take her “little pal” out for a day of amusement. She was at such times so ingratiatingly kind that Frances put aside all thought of leaving her. No doubt these intervals of hectic excitement were her periods of reform; in fact, she almost admitted it. “I have to keep on going,” she said, “to take my mind off things.” Curious that Frances should find herself so placed, Frances who had been brought up to regard drunkenness in a man as a bestial crime, and in a _woman_, a thing almost impossibly awful. She sometimes wondered at herself, how was it that she didn’t blame Miss Eppendorfer, but looked upon her failing as if it were a disease? She felt herself very old, very experienced. In spite of her pity and real unhappiness over the thing, there was in it a deep, secret satisfaction; it was, she felt, Knowledge, Life; she was learning, developing. She had so far, far outgrown Minnie and her grandmother and their standards! She was tolerant, worldly-wise; there wasn’t, she believed, much more for her to learn.... The future rather worried her. This couldn’t last forever, and after this, what? She was not gaining experience that would be of any practical value to her in any other position. She was not able to save money; at the end of six months she found herself no better off than when her career had begun. And she was so ambitious, so passionately anxious to succeed, to be important and famous. She gave her problem much serious thought. One thing was certain; she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave Miss Eppendorfer under the present circumstances; the only thing was for her to prepare herself, to be ready for something better when there was a change of some sort. She presented her scheme to Miss Eppendorfer as tactfully as possible.