“But, dearie, I’ve got Miss Loughborough’s check in my purse.”
“Yes, and we owe ten times its amount! ... We’re running steadily behind. I don’t see anything better ahead. It’s going to be this way year after year, always falling a little more and a little more behind, until—until, well—until people won’t trust us any more.”
“Perhaps we could cut down a bit somewheres, Janny.”
“Oh, Mama, don’t talk nonsense! I’m going to work,—that’s all there is about it.”
“Jeannette! ... You can’t! ... You mustn’t!”
“Well, I am just the same. Rosa Najarian is a stenographer with the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and she gets eighteen dollars a week! ... Think of it, Mama! Eighteen dollars a week! She took a ten weeks’ course at the Gerard Commercial School and at the end of that time they got her a job. She didn’t have to wait a week! ... No, I’m not going to High School another day. To-morrow I’m going down to that Commercial School.”
“But, dearie—dearie! You don’t want to be a working girl!”
“You’re a working woman, aren’t you?”
“But, my dear, I had no other choice. I had my girls to bring up, and I’ve grubbed and slaved, as you say, just so my daughters would never have to take positions. I’ve worked hard to make ladies of you, dearie,—and no lady’s a shop-girl.... Oh, I couldn’t bear it! You and Allie shop-girls! ... Janny,—it would finish me.”
“Well, Mama, you don’t feel so awfully about Rosa Najarian—do you? You consider Rosa a lady, don’t you?”