There was this time for Ellen no interested inspection of the landscape. Her gaze, directed to the back of the next seat, did not lift to the hat of its occupant, but remained fixed upon the dusty red plush. In the fields men and women were cutting corn, their blue jeans suits the color of the river which reflected in a darker tone the clear sky. Here and there showed a red or yellow branch and there were masses of weeds which were already brown.

During her journey, which seemed like the day of Matthew's wedding, both long and short, Ellen made futile efforts to assemble and arrange her thoughts. The act which she was now executing she had dreamed of innumerable times, but her rage with Matthew and Millie had driven her to it before she was wholly prepared for independence. Her thoughts recurred bitterly to the scene of the evening before. Millie was evil-minded, hateful; she had bewitched Matthew into marrying her by pretending to be better than she was; she persuaded him now to claim everything for himself, to prevent Ellen from going to school in order that she herself might have more.

She suspected that it was Millie who had suggested felling the trees. But of that sacrilege she could not think and keep her composure. She heard the rasping sound of the wood saw; she watched the mighty trunks crash down, emitting almost human sounds of pain. Matthew should be punished; he should be made to suffer an equivalent for all that he had made her suffer.

She understood, however, that one could not safely allow one's mind to be forever occupied with one's wrongs. She now had her future in her own hands, and she did not doubt that work would be easily secured. In the hundreds of stores there would be a place for her; where so many persons were gathered all kinds of workers would be needed. She did not doubt her ability to sell goods of any sort. She might find it necessary to take a humble position at first, but she would rise rapidly.

When she reached the dark train-shed in Harrisburg, hands and knees were trembling. The waiting-room was crowded with passengers for an excursion train, and she felt the country-dweller's discomfort and irritation at being jostled. There had been no time to notify Mrs. Sassaman, but she was like the sun, she did not move from place to place. Ellen inquired the way to Hill Street and signaled the proper car.

But the car did not stop. A second also sailed by, but the third was driven by a motorman of friendlier spirit who motioned to the opposite corner, and she climbed aboard, conscious of eyes upon her. She became immediately aware that she did not look like the other women, that her dress and coat were a size too small, and that the style of her hat bore no relation to the present fashion.

When she found at last the house of Mrs. Sassaman's sister, Mrs. Lebber, she stood still in dismay. One of a sordid row hanging on the edge of a hillside above the railroad yards, even the bright September sunshine could not make it seem a possible abode. There must be a mistake! But a little marker on the house itself said "Hill Street," and this was Number 34.

Doubts were soon put to flight by the appearance of Mrs. Sassaman, a stouter, paler creature, but Mrs. Sassaman without question, who gazed at Ellen speechlessly while she held fast to the door.

"Oh, thou dear peace!" she said at last. "Ellen, is it you?"

Ellen could not speak. Mrs. Sassaman cooed like a mourning dove.

"Did you come to see me once then, Ellen?"

Ellen nodded, and Mrs. Sassaman opened the door wider upon an atmosphere saturated with the steam of washing and scented with the odor of boiling sauerkraut, and led her into a little parlor where she sat down and put her satchel on the floor. Mrs. Sassaman's tears had begun to flow and it was not until several moments had passed that she could proceed.

"Well, Ellen!" said she again.

"I have come to the city to work," explained Ellen, trying to express in her voice the courage which she believed she felt in her soul.

Mrs. Sassaman was not encouraging.

"Oh, Ellen, the city is an awful place! People, people, people, and dirt, dirt, dirt!"

"I'm not afraid of it. I'm not going to stay here always. I mean to get a place in a store, and I shall study in the evenings, until I've saved enough to go to college."

"Are you then still trying to be learned, Ellen?"

"I'm going to college," said Ellen stubbornly. "I thought perhaps I could get a room where you lived."

"Here?" said Mrs. Sassaman. Alas, by her desire to live on Hill Street Ellen descended from the pedestal upon which the Levises should have remained exalted! "I could ask my sister."

Mrs. Sassaman retired into a quarter nearer the source of the steam and the odor, and returning brought with her a mournful replica of herself. Mrs. Lebber had been the wife of a railroad conductor and had remained after his sudden death in the house to which he had brought her as a bride. She had insurance and death benefits sufficient to support her body and she had a grievance against the railroad company upon which she fed her soul. Life had cruelly disappointed her. Like Mrs. Sassaman she had expected to get married and to remain married and to be a clinging vine. She looked at Ellen with curiosity and disappointment.

"Is this then Ellen!" The sentence was not interrogatory but exclamatory. It said, "This the beautiful scion of a prosperous and famous family of whom I have had to hear so much!"

She sat down heavily.

"She would like if she could get a room here," exclaimed Mrs. Sassaman.

Mrs. Lebber stared in astonishment at Ellen. Mrs. Sassaman had shown no sisterly frankness in her recent accounts of the Levis family, but now their fallen state was plain. Mrs. Lebber had a harmless but inordinate curiosity.

"Why does she leave her nice home?" The question implied a doubt about the niceness of the home.

"I wanted to come to the city to work."

"Her brother is married now."

"I'm afraid you've made a mistake." Mrs. Lebber contemplated the faded picture of the railroad conductor above the mantelpiece. "I never would 'a' thought I would have to take any one in to live with me for money. I thought always that I would have it better than I do have it."

"And I too," mourned Mrs. Sassaman.

Ellen bent her head. This was a doleful beginning. But in her "David Copperfield" there was a picture of the hero sitting with his satchel beside him, as she was sitting now. The recollection heartened her.

"I guess you could have the little room," said Mrs. Lebber; "that is, if it is you good enough."

Ellen carried her satchel up the stairs. The room indicated contained a bed, a bureau, and a chair; the remaining space measured about six feet by four. The lifted shade revealed the railroad yards and the sky.

"Just look once!" cried Mrs. Lebber, pointing tragically to a drift of black particles on the window-sill. "Do all you can and it don't help."

Having agreed to Mrs. Lebber's modest price, Ellen partook of the sauerkraut and descended once more to the business section. Food had restored her and she felt in herself a sense of adventure. She must expect unpleasant experiences, she reminded herself, and when they came she must remember her goal. She was in no immediate need of money, for pinned inside her dress were five ten dollar bills for which she had exchanged the nickels and dimes and quarters saved through her childhood, and the spending money which Matthew had given her.

She acquired between the hours of one and five a good deal of experience of store-keepers and their ways. She went first to the department store near the station where Amos bought his books and questioned the clerk nearest the door. The clerk looked at her curiously and directed her to an office on the second floor.

"I'd like to fix that country pippin up."

"She'll fix herself up," was the short reply from her nearest neighbor. "Give her time!"

In the office Ellen's name and age and address were recorded by a young woman who spoke to her through a brass grill. Had she had experience in clerking? No. Training in business college? No. How much education—High School? Ellen thought she had had at least an equivalent. The clerk blotted her book with an air of finality.

"Have you a place for me?"

"Not now, of course. We take on extras when the holiday trade begins. We'll let you hear from us."

In a few other establishments Ellen's name and history were recorded, but in most places she was answered merely by a shake of the head. Every one, she realized, looked at her last summer's gingham.

Finally in a little jewelry store near the entrance to the subway through which the street descended under the railroad, she was successful. The articles in the crowded window looked very valuable, though they were paste and plated ware. The customers were chiefly men, passengers from the trains who stopped to have their watches regulated and to spend a few minutes of spare time. The proprietor listened to Ellen with interest and engaged her promptly, promising her six dollars a week and an advance if she did well. He looked at her even more sharply than he listened to her, and when she had gone he nodded his satisfaction.

Mrs. Lebber did not view this engagement with approval.

"Is he a married man, this Mr. Goldstein?"

"I don't know."

"Are you there alone with him in his store?"

"No; men repair watches in a little room at the back."

Mrs. Lebber shook her head.

"There are very bad people in the city. Most are bad."

Ellen recalled Millie's account of the experiences of her acquaintances who went to the city to find work and who were set upon as though they were lambs venturing into the lairs of wolves. She scorned both Millie's tales and Mrs. Lebber's fears.

She went to her room and unpacked her belongings; then by the dim light she wrote to Matthew asking him to forward her larger satchel. Having wiped away a few angry tears, she opened her algebra and fixed her mind upon it.

When she laid her head on her pillow she felt under her cheek the sharp points of the black dust she had seen on her window-sill and had felt under her hand as she touched the furniture. Sometimes a light shower fell upon her cheek. The trains had thundered in the abyss all the evening, but she had a vague notion that they would now go to bed. Instead their activity increased; they seemed to come in the window and go out the door, to threaten the foundations of the house.

Finding sleep impossible she considered the weapons with which she was to fight her battles. The education which was so superior to that of her country neighbors was, it seemed, unfortunately not correlated with the requirements of department stores. But she had a mind and she would learn. In the second place, she had physical strength. She did not count in the least upon her curly hair, her clear skin, her dark eyes, and her round figure, nor realize that it was these possessions which had won her her first situation.

Having exhausted herself as a subject for study, she thought of Mrs. Sassaman, who had changed. In the light of the old days she decided that Mrs. Sassaman, by turns silent and communicative and frequently on the verge of tears, had "something on her mind."

She went to work the next morning, having made up for sleep by a cup of strong coffee. Her employer had opened his shop and was now finishing the sweeping of his floor, a task which was to be hers from now on.

"I guess it won't hurt your dress," he said pleasantly.

Ellen did not catch the inner meaning of his remark.

"You might get a little something new once," suggested Mr. Goldstein. "Just a new waist, perhaps; it would improve you."

He showed Ellen where she was to stand.

"There by the window. I'll look after the back of the shop. The women have sure always the easy time, ain't it so?"

Ellen perched upon a high stool behind the counter and looked out at the passing throng of men and women from neighboring villages. She caught a man's wandering glance; he entered and offered a watch which needed attention. Having directed him to Mr. Goldstein, who carried his watch to the workroom at the rear, Ellen looked again toward the street. A second passer-by met her eye and came in, requesting a chain from the case before her. The chains were plainly labeled, a sale was soon consummated and Mr. Goldstein took the burden of making change. The first customer stopped to speak to her on his way out, but was interrupted by the arrival of a third.

"I'll be back when you're not so busy," he promised with reference—at least so she thought—to the purchase of a chain for his repaired watch.

There are a good many empty-minded men who turn aside at the glance of a pair of dark and straightforward eyes, but the supply is not inexhaustible. The middle of the morning brought a period of comparative idleness, when Mr. Goldstein joined the corps of workmen and Ellen sat with folded hands; at noon there was another season of activity followed by another period of idleness. During this period her heart suddenly jumped. What could she not accomplish in these hours! She brought with her the next morning her General History.

The morning stream of pedestrians interested her, though she never got a long look at it, so rapid was the entrance of customers. When trade slackened and Mr. Goldstein had gone to his watch-mending, she opened her book. She was entirely innocent of any intention to steal his time, and he was for a while ignorant of the theft, since he made the opening of the shop-door which was her signal for laying down her book, his signal for a return. She studied a large and never-to-be-forgotten portion of General History. Her book served a minor purpose; she no longer caught the eyes of passers-by.

Fate was not so partial that she kept Mr. Goldstein forever in ignorance of this offense against all the laws of contract between employer and employee. He found before the end of the week Ellen's book under the counter; he heard with irritation the amused comments of his friends. If he had caught her in the beginning of her duplicity he would merely have admonished her, but he realized that she had got the better of him for almost a week—not an easy matter, he proudly boasted. He dismissed her with eloquence.

"Did you think I couldn't get no other girls that you could try to make such a fool of me, say? Did you think I run a university? The men on the street say to me, 'Say, is it true that you employ a reader to sit in your window all the time and read a book?' They ask me do you read to me while I work and if it is the Scripture. You can go, and there is your pay."

A pale Ellen stared at him.

"I waited on everybody who came in!"

"Did you think waiting on everybody who came in was what I had you for?" inquired Mr. Goldstein with scorn. "I do the waiting."

"What did you engage me for?" she asked, bewildered.

Mr. Goldstein believed that she was as innocent as she seemed.

"Nobody will come in here to see an old man, will they? I engaged you because you had black eyes."

Ellen's black eyes were for a moment not visible. Then she put on her hat and took the docked wages held out to her. She was not at first insulted, she was only humiliated. But on the way up the dreary hill her sense of outrage grew. Her eyes filled with tears; she longed for her room and for a chance to cry. She felt homeless, and forlorn. She had been driven from her own home and she had no other.

Then in Mrs. Lebber's dismal little hall she stood still. In the parlor sat the last person whom she wished to see at this moment—Matthew, with her satchel beside him.