Publishers Note
Notwithstanding the fact that the sales of magazines have increased tremendously during the past five or six years, the popularity of a good paper-covered novel, printed in attractive and convenient form, remains undiminished.
There are thousands of readers who do not care for magazines because the stories in them, as a rule, are short and just about the time they become interested in it, it ends and they are obliged to readjust their thoughts to a set of entirely different characters.
The S. & S. novel is long and complete and enables the reader to spend many hours of thorough enjoyment without doing any mental gymnastics. Our paper-covered books stand pre-eminent among up-to-date fiction. Every day sees a new copyrighted title added to the S. & S. lines, each one making them stronger, better and more invincible.
STREET & SMITH, Publishers
79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
BEAUTIFUL BUT POOR.
CHAPTER I.
HATTIE’S LETTER.
Fancy a dingy old brick house on B—— street, New York city—dusty outside and moldy in all its ragged, papered walls inside—a dreary house with small, poorly ventilated rooms—these rooms wretchedly furnished, and I have made you at home in “Miss Scrimp’s Boarding-House for ladies only—no gentlemen boarded, lodged, or admitted.”
For this was the inscription on a faded tin sign nailed over the front door.
And in this building existed—I will not say lived—most of the time, between thirty and fifty working girls, attracted there by the cheapness of board, which enabled them to make ends meet on the wretched wages due to “hard times,” or hard-hearted employers, or perhaps to a medium between the two.