"I don't know anything about heaven," the last speaker said hastily, "but I'm sure I hope there's purgatory at least for some of the people I've had to submit to. I think a woman manager is worse than a man. I've never had trouble anywhere and always stay right on, but I've wanted to knock some of the managers down, and it ought to have been done. Just take the new superintendent. We loved the old one, but this one came in when she died, and one of the first things she did was to discharge one of the old girls because she didn't smile enough. Good reason why. She'd lost her mother the week before and wasn't likely to feel much like smiling. And then she went inside the counters and pitched out all the old shoes the girls had there to make it easier to stand. It 'most kills you to stand all day in new shoes, but Miss T---- pitched them all out and said she wasn't going to have the store turned into an old-clothes shop." "Well, it's better than lots of them, no matter what she does," said another. "I was at H----'s for six months, and there you have to ask a man for leave every time it is necessary to go upstairs, and half the time he would look and laugh with the other clerks. I'd rather be where there are all women. They're hard on you sometimes, but they don't use foul language and insult you when you can't help yourself." This last complaint has proved for many stores a perfectly well-founded one. Wash-rooms and other conveniences have been for common use, and many sensitive and shrinking girls have brought on severe illnesses arising solely from dread of running this gantlet.