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      Chapter I. The Inevitable

      Book I.—The Girl

       Table of Contents

      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      The Inevitable

      "No. The chemises aren't cut out. I haven't had time. There are enough shirts to go on with, aren't there, Mrs. James?" said Betty.

      "We can make do for this afternoon, Miss, but the men they're getting blowed out with shirts. It's the children's shifts as we can't make shift without much longer." Mrs. James, habitually doleful, punctuated her speech with sniffs.

      "That's a joke, Mrs. James," said Betty. "How clever you are!"

      "I try to be what's fitting," said Mrs. James, complacently.

      "Talk of fitting," said Betty, "If you like I'll fit on that black bodice for you, Mrs. Symes. If the other ladies don't mind waiting for the reading a little bit."

      "I'd as lief talk as read, myself," said a red-faced sandy-haired woman; "books ain't what they was in my young days."

      "If it's the same to you, Miss," said Mrs. Symes in a thick rich voice, "I'll not be tried on afore a room full. If we are poor we can all be clean's what I say, and I keeps my unders as I keeps my outside. But not before persons as has real imitation lace on their petticoat bodies. I see them when I was a-nursing her with her fourth. No, Miss, and thanking you kindly, but begging your pardon all the same."

      "Don't mention it," said Betty absently. "Oh, Mrs. Smith, you can't have lost your thimble already. Why what's that you've got in your mouth?"

      "So it is!" Mrs. Smith's face beamed at the gratifying coincidence. "It always was my habit, from a child, to put things there for safety."

      "These cheap thimbles ain't fit to put in your mouth, no more than coppers," said Mrs. James, her mouth full of pins.

      "Oh, nothing hurts you if you like it," said Betty recklessly. She had been СКАЧАТЬ