"Then I'm afraid it's no use without an appointment. Anyhow, this isn't the right hour to snapshot editors of daily papers. They're night-blooming flowers. Would you like to try for an appointment with Mr. Shaw, Burritt's successor?"
Win thanked him, but thought it would be no use. She would have liked to walk down, only there seemed to be no stairs. A merry youth who ran the nearest elevator asked if she would care to use the fire-escape.
The address of Mr. Noble, the organist, was that of a private house. It was a far cry from To-day and To-morrow, up in the hundreds, and Miss Hampshire had told Miss Child to take the elevated. Easier said than done. You could go up the steps and reach a platform on top of the improved Roman viaduct, but there were so many other people intent on squeezing through the iron gate and onto the uptown train—people far more indomitable than yourself—that nothing happened except the slam, slam of that gate in your face.
At last, however, Miss Child was borne along with a rush from behind and found herself swinging back and forth like a pendulum on a strap which she clutched wildly. Men in America were supposed to jump up and give women their seats, but there were no men in this train. It was peopled with women who had been shopping, and who carried bundles. Many went on so far that Win began to believe they were taking a jaunt for fun, especially as they did not seem at all tired, but chewed something unremittingly with an air of calm delight. This was, perhaps, what Americans called a "joy ride!"
There seemed to be no end to New York, and vistas of cross streets looked so much alike that Win did not wonder they were named only with numbers. She wanted One Hundred and Thirty-Third Street, and Mr. Noble's house was a long way from the elevated station. When she found it at last it was only to learn that six months ago the organist had accepted a position in Chicago. And New York seemed twice as big, twice as absent-minded, when both letters of introduction had failed.
Win had often tried to check her tendency to over-optimism by telling herself that neither Mr. Burritt nor Mr. Noble might have work to give. But Miss Ellis (now comfortably married in London) had said they were kind men. If they had nothing to offer, they would certainly introduce Miss Child to some one who had. It had never occurred to her that they might thoughtlessly have died or gone elsewhere. Editors and organists seemed so importantly permanent to the lay mind.
This was indeed being alone in New York! And at the very thought—now she could guess what it might be like—her one hundred and ninety-six dollars and twenty-eight cents seemed to be shrinking in the wash.
"Nonsense!" said she, on the elevated again, tearing downtown. "Don't be a silly. Any one would think you were the leading lady in a melodrama, turned out of the house without your hat, in a snowstorm that followed you round the stage like a wasp! You'll be all right. Miss Ellis told you they loved English girls in New York. Just you wait till to-morrow, my dear!"
The rest of the day she spent in the frying pan, "pulling herself together," and "seeing where she stood," a process
consisting mostly of counting her greenbacks and comparing them with their equivalent in English money. After all, there was not too much time for this mental adjustment of things, because, being late in October, darkness fell early, and Miss Hampshire's boarders dined at six-thirty. Promptness was obligatory if you were a female. A little more latitude—a raising of the eyebrows instead of a frown—was granted if you were fortunate enough to be of the opposite sex. Miss Hampshire's sad smile seemed to concede that men had temptations.