An unintelligible mumbling followed, which by dint of strained listening at many ensuing meals Jean finally translated, "And Thou givest them their meat in due season." Thirty odd chairs forthwith scraped the bare floor. Thirty odd appetites attacked the food heaped in coarse earthenware upon the oilcloth. Jean fasted. Hash she despised; macaroni stood scarcely higher in her regard; while tea was an essentially feminine beverage which of principle she had long eschewed. This eliminated everything save bread, and it chanced that her share of this staple was of the maiden baking of a young person whose talents till lately had been exclusively devoted to picking pockets. Jean surveyed the room. It shared the naked dreariness of the corridors; not a picture enlivened its terra-cotta wastes of wall. Another long table, twin in all respects to her own, occupied with hers the greater part of the floor space; but there remained room near the door for two smaller tables, the matron's, which she had remarked on entering, and one occupied by five favorites of fortune, whose uniform, though similar to the general in color, resembled a trained nurse's in its striping, and was further distinguished by white collars and cuffs. This table, like the matron's, was covered with a white cloth and boasted a small jardinière of ferns. The matron's voice was again heard. "You may talk now, girls," she announced. "Quietly, remember." A score of tongues were instantly loosed. The newcomer was astounded. How had they the heart to speak? It was strange table-talk, curiously limited in range, straying little beyond the narrow confines of the reformatory world. A girl opposite said: "One year and five months more!" and set afoot a spirited comparison which crisscrossed the board from end to end and reached its climax in the enviable lot of her whose release was due in thirty-seven days. Jean observed that the head of the first speaker was lop-sided; its neighbor was narrow in the forehead; a third, two places beyond, had peculiar teeth. Nearly all, in fact, were stamped with some queerness, either natural or artificially imposed by an institutional régime wherein the graces of the toilet had no function. The gossip took another tack, originating this time in some trivial happening in the gymnasium. Jean listened closely at a mention of basket-ball, but lost all interest when the talk veered fitfully to the sewing-school. "Ain't you hungry?" said a voice at her side. Jean rounded upon a girl perhaps a year her senior. Her tones were gentle, with a certain lisping appeal, and her face, if not strong, was neither abnormal nor coarse. Outside a refuge uniform she would readily pass as pretty. "I couldn't stomach it myself, at the start," she went on, without waiting for an answer, "but I got used to it. We all do. Why, the days I work in the laundry I'm half starved." Jean stared. "They make you do laundry work!"