The house to which, next morning, Violet, still weak and still afraid of her enemies, made, with many timid inquiries, her slow way was in West Ninth Street, near Sixth Avenue. It was a four-story, grimy, brick house, with rows of prying windows through which no passer's eye could pierce, a dilapidated little yard in front of it, and a bell-handle that, when pulled, threatened to come off in Violet's fist. The woman that answered this uncertain summons much resembled the building she inhabited. She was tall, and she had a sharp face just the color of the house-walls. The spectacles high on her beaked nose gleamed like the windows and, like the windows, conveyed the impression that they saw a great deal without permitting any outsider to look behind them. Her once formidably austere black dress was rusty, and her hands were so lean that Violet felt sure they must stretch when one shook them. "What do you want?" asked this woman in a voice that cut like a meat-ax. "Are you Mrs. Turner?" "Yes. What do you want?" "I heard you needed a girl." "Where'd you hear it?" "At the college-settlement in Rivington Street." The woman's mouth tightened. "Don't see how anyone there come to know aught o' me," she said. "Got a reference?" Violet, beginning to tremble lest this chance should slip away from her, fumbled after the note that had been written for her, and finally found it and handed it over. Mrs. Turner's gleaming glasses read it twice, plainly suspecting forgery. Then she calmly placed it in her skirt pocket. "Where's your home?" she next demanded. "In Pittsburgh." "Hum. How much do you expect?" "Sixteen dollars," quavered Violet, who had received instructions from Katie. Mrs. Turner shook her head vigorously. "Won't do," she said. "Can't pay it. Twelve's my best, and when I have a cook--I'm out of one just now--all you have to do for it is to scrub and sweep and clean the house, wash dishes, and wait on table. How long did you stay in your last place?" Mrs. Turner gave another skeptical "Hum" as Violet answered: "Two years." "Will you take it at twelve dollars, or will you not?" asked the woman, sharply. Violet had been told to descend gradually and not to accept a cent under fourteen dollars a month; but she was no haggler. "I'll take it," she said. "And good pay, too, considerin'," commented Mrs. Turner. "I dunno. It someways don't look reg'lar. Got your trunk over to the settlement?" Violet explained that she had no trunk; that she had just come from the hospital and had as yet had no opportunity to replenish what had been a sadly depleted wardrobe. "Hum!" said Mrs. Turner. In the penetrating glare of the impenetrable spectacles she studied the white face before her. "You wait a minute," she concluded. "Not inside. Out here on the stoop." She came outside herself and closed and locked the door.