Frank Garrick, the manager, looked after her with a smile that was not pleasant to see.
"I have run across many a little beauty in my time," he muttered, gazing after her, "but surely never such an exquisite little beauty as this one."
The girls looked at one another, nodding grimly, when Ida May presented herself for duty the next day.
"Didn't I tell you how it would be?" sneered one of the girls. "Our handsome manager, Mr. Garrick, was captivated by the girl's beauty, as I knew he would be, and engaged her, although he refused to take on, only the day before, three girls whom I knew to be actually starving."
There was one girl who looked at Ida May with darkening eyes.
She bent over her task; but though the hours passed, the terrible look never left her face.
"Nannie is jealous," more than one girl whispered to her neighbor. "You see, she's head over heels in love with our manager. If he so much as looks at any other girl that passes along, she sulks for a week. What fun it would be to make her jealous. Oh, let's try, girls! Let's put up a job on her. It would be such fun!"
"Not for the new-comer!" laughed another girl.
"Nannie would make it pretty hot for her here."