before finding employment at another Sixth Avenue store.

In applying here she told the employer that she would not work for less than $12 a week. He offered her $9, and a commission on all sales beyond $400 a week. She refused, and the firm finally gave her what she asked.

It proved that her choice was wise, for she found that in her very busiest week, when she was exhausted from the day's rush, her sales never reached $400 a week, so that she would have received no income at all from the proffered commission.

She had a small room alone in an attractive hotel for working girls. For this and breakfasts and dinners she paid $5.10 a week. Luncheons cost, in addition, about $1.50 a week. She paid 50 cents a week for washing, besides doing some herself. Riding to and from work nearly every day increased her weekly expense 50 cents. This left her $4.40 a week for clothing and sundries.

Mrs. Green seemed extravagantly dressed; she said, however, that she contrived to have effective waists and hats by making and trimming them herself, and by purchasing materials with care at sales. In dressing economically without sacrificing effect she was aided palpably by skill and deftness.

She was in good health; and, though she did not save, she had not spent, even in her idle month, any of the reserve fund she had accumulated before she began to work.

Another self-supporting saleswoman aided by her experience in domestic economy was Zetta Weyman, a young woman of twenty-eight, who had begun to work for wages at the age of eleven; at this time she still attended school, but did housework out of school hours. When she was older, she was employed as a maid in the house of a very kind and responsive couple, who gave her free access to their interesting library, where she read eagerly. A trip to Europe had been especially stimulating. Her employer was considerate, and tried to make it possible for her to benefit by the experience.

Throughout this period she had been observant of dress and manner among the cultured people she saw, and had applied what she learned to her own dress and conduct. At twenty-six, wishing for larger opportunities than those she could have in personal service, she obtained work in a department store at $7 a week. Here she soon advanced to $10 in a department requiring more than average intelligence. At the end of two years she was very much interested in her work. It made demands upon her judgment, and offered opportunity for increasing knowledge and heightening her value to the company. She expected soon to receive a larger wage, as she considered her work worth at least $15 a week. Aside from underpay, she thought she was fairly treated. She greatly appreciated two weeks' vacation with full wages.

Zetta gave $2.50 a week for a furnished hall bedroom and the use of a bath-room. The warmth from the single gas-jet was the sole heat. She made coffee in her room for breakfast; a light luncheon sufficed; and dinner in a restaurant cost 25 to 35 cents a day. She was often entertained at dinner, by friends.

She usually rode to work, and walked home, eight blocks, spending thus 30 cents a week carfare. All living expenses for the week came to about $6. She paid for six years $24 a year on an insurance policy which promised her $15 a week in case of illness, and was cumulative, making a return during the life of the holder; $290 would be due from it in about a year.

Zetta said that she was extravagant in her expense for clothing, but she considered that her social position depended upon her appearance. She was very attractive looking. Her manner had quiet and grace, and there was something touching, even moving, in the dignity of her pure, clear English, acquired in the teeth of a fortune that forced her to be a little scullion and cook at the age of eleven. She was dressed with taste and care at the time of the interview. Through watching sales and through information obtained from heads of departments, she contrived to buy clothing of excellent quality, silk stockings, and well-cut suits comparatively cheaply. By waiting until the end of the season, she had paid $35, the winter before, for a suit originally costing $70; $35 was more than she had intended to spend, but the suit was becoming and she could not resist the purchase. She managed to have pretty and well-designed hats for from $2 to $5, because a friend trimmed them.

She spent her vacation with relatives on a farm in the country. Railroad fares and the occasional purchase of a magazine were her only expenditures for pleasure. But she had many "good times" going to the beaches in the summer with friends who paid her way.

She considered that with careful planning a girl could live in fair comfort for $10 a week. But she saved nothing.

The drawback she mentioned in her own arrangements—the best she could obtain for her present wage—was not the cold of her hall bedroom, warmed only by the gas-jet, but that she had no suitable place for receiving men friends. She was obliged to turn to trolley rides and walks and various kinds of excursions,—literally to the streets,—for hospitality, when she received a man's visit. She spoke frequently of one man with whom she had many "good times." She could not take him to her room. Trolley rides, and walks in winter, would pall. She hated park benches as a resort for quiet conversation. Where, then, was she to see him? Although she disapproved of it, she and another girl who had a larger and more attractive room than her own had received men there.

Zetta's income for the year had been $520. She had spent $130 for rent; $105 for dinners; $55 for breakfasts, luncheons, and washing; $195 for clothing, summer railway fares, and incidentals; $15 for carfare; and $20 for insurance.

IV

Zetta's interest in her daily occupation is somewhat unusual in the trade chronicles of the shop-girls. One frequently hears complaint of the inefficiency and inattention of New York saleswomen and their rudeness to plainly dressed customers. While this criticism contains a certain truth, it is, of course, unreasonable to expect excellence from service frequently ill paid, often unevenly and unfairly promoted, and, except with respect to dress, quite unstandardized.

Further, it must be remembered that the world in which the shop-girl follows her occupation is a world of externals. The fortunes, talents, tastes, eager human effort spent in shop-window displays on Fifth Avenue, the shimmer and sparkle of beautiful silks and jewels, the prestige of "carriage trade," the distinction of presence of some of the customers and their wealth and their freedom in buying—all the worldliness of the most moneyed city of the United States here perpetually passes before the eyes of Zettas in their $1.20 muslin waists so carefully scrubbed the midnight before, and of Alices who have had breakfasts for 10 cents. Is it surprising that they should adopt the New York shop-window-display ideal of life manifested everywhere around them?

The saleswomen themselves are the worst victims of their unstandardized employment; and the fact that they spend long years of youth in work involving a serious outlay of their strength, without training them in concentration or individual responsibility or resourcefulness, but apparently dissipating these powers, seems one of the gravest aspects of their occupation.

A proud and very pretty pink-cheeked little English shop-girl, with clear hazel eyes, laid special stress upon unevenness of promotion, in telling of her fortunes in this country.

She was sitting, as she spoke, in the parlor of a Christian "home," which, like that of many others where shop-girls live, was light and clean, but had that unmistakably excellent and chilling air so subtly imparted by the altruistic act of furnishing for others—the air that characterizes spare rooms, hotel parlors, and great numbers of