With her trick of mind that could close itself against any concern beyond her immediate future, her one burning desire was for a competency, to be earned preferably at stenography, since that would leave her evenings free, and which would tide her over these first weeks of difficult readjustment. To find and afford for this amazing liability of hers the kind of temporary asylum that would set her free for the scheming out of her new cosmos. She found out, at the instance of the practical nurse, a sort of semi-private institution on Columbus Avenue, but a trip through the wards and nurseries sickened her. There was a score of little blue gingham dresses, dingy fabrics that seemed to darken childhood, flapping on a rear clothes line, and one two-year-old child lay asleep on a step, his little white frock, with black anchors printed into it, furiously smeared, and one hand clutching a sticky gingersnap. She did not even inquire further, but got out quickly, trembling. The proprietor of the Swedish bakery gave her an address of a Mrs. Landman, a practical nurse who might consent to board the infant of an employed parent. So on the very day of the lawyer's encounter there was another sickening journey to what proved to be a tenement in West Fifty-third Street. The newel post to the entrance was defaced with obscene handwriting, the hallways were like cellars, and there was a sign in the window, "Madam Landman, Midwife." She did not linger to ring the bell, but worked her way downtown again, toward the lawyer's office _via_ the florist's establishment, always with an eye to minimum car fare. That night she lay awake the night through. Another bed in the infirmary was occupied. One of the girls had spilled scalding tea along her arm, and all night to her groanings Lilly lay staring into the darkness, her child so in the cove of her arm that its slight breathing fanned her flesh. It was one of those long, calculating nights full of alternatives no sooner contrived than rejected. Only one state of surety came crystalline out of it. There was no going back. Twice she rose and, with much of her old revulsion curiously gone, greased the scalded arm by the puny aid of a night light that flowed in from the hall when the door was opened. At five o'clock her child began a lusty paean to the dawn. She heated the milk and held the warm bottle tilted until it was emptied with the strong, deep draughts that delighted her. There was distinctly more gold out day by day in the ringlets, and the eyes were turning gray and could fill blackly with pupil.