"Id vas bad enough in de steerage mit all de sailor-mens kissin' you to-day un' kickin' you to-morrow; bud dat tshob of mine, dat vas de real limit! I gome over here because I vouldn't vork in de fields back home, bud in dat boarding-house vhere I get dat tshob, I get up at dree o'clock every mornin', because some of de mens vork in Jefferson Market, un' I haf to scrub, un' make de beds, un' help cook, un' vait on dable, un' vash dishes, un' sweep de whole house oud. Un' den till late at nighd I haf to help cook, un' vait on dable, un' vash dishes some more still. Vhenever I am sick, or late, or break von dish, or a boarder don' pay, I gets docked. Un' almost every veek I'm sick or late or break a dish or a boarder don' pay. My vages is d'ree dollar a veek, un' I never gets more as two-fifty--sometime, two--un' dat vill nod pay my clothes ad first, un' don' pay my doctor bills aftervard." The story was told monotonously, without much show of emotion, but it was enough of itself to wring a word from the woman to whom it was addressed. "You got sick?" asked Mary. "Who vouldn't?" said Fritzie. "You bed I get sick, un' vhen I gome oud of de hospital, de young doctor--he'd been makin' grand lofe to me--he tell me I vas too nice a girl to vork my hands off fur nussin' a veek, un' he gif me his visitin' card vith a writin' on it to a voman he knowed, un' I quit un' vent dere." She paused, but Mary was silent, and the German resumed: "It vas a goot place, bud nod so goot as dis von. I stay a mont' till she move to Philadelphia. Den I vent to anozzer house, not so goot as dat first, fur two mont's till the voman die. Un' den, after some more, I gome here, pretty soon, to Miss Rose's. No"--she waved her thick hand toward the door through which Celeste had lately passed--"I'm nod like dat Frenchie. She's vhat Phil Beekman calls a 'gongenital,' vatever dat iss; I vork hard enough now, und I vanted to vork righd den; bud I tell you I could not stand it, dough I vas so strong. No, I'm glad I gome here." She leaned back upon her elbow. "Now, dis Celeste----" she began, but the French girl, just then entering, came with an air that was a sufficient explanation of her never complex temperament. "_Voilà!_" she smiled, holding aloft a long glass filled by a dull green liquid. "Let the leetle girl tak some of thees wheech I meex for her." Before she had well realized what she was doing, Mary had accepted the glass. "What is it?" she asked weakly. "Absinthe," replied Celeste. "It smells like licorice," said Mary. "Ah, but no; eet ees not that. You try thees, an' then you can eat." "But I don't think I want to eat." "Poof! That ees folly! See, now, I meex thees myself--I myself have _frappé_ eet. Ees eet what you call polite that you say 'no' to me? Say, now: ees eet?" Involuntarily Mary smiled. It was a rueful little smile, but it was a smile of exhausted consent. "It won't hurt me?"