"I shouldn't wonder. He couldn't guess, naturally, that you've had a steady diet of hymns for three years. Still, that song is only just out, and half of us didn't know the words."
"Did I do anything else queer?"
"Well, you tried hard to pass dishes down the line, instead of letting the maid do it, and you looked sideways a good deal without turning your head. I don't think of anything else just now unless it's that you're as nervous as a cat. Miss Archer did her best to make us girls act like other human beings, but she didn't run the whole refuge, more's the pity. I've got a stack of things to thank her for. Do you notice I don't say 'ain't' any more?"
"Yes."
"She broke me of that. She said I'd find it paid to speak good English, and I have. Already it's meant dollars to me, just like the doctor's soap and water."
Jean wondered how grammatical accuracy could further the making of cloaks, but Amy had suddenly become too drowsy to explain. Rest came less easily to the newcomer. The muffled roar of the elevated railroad, heeded by the urban ear no more than the beat of surf, teased her excited senses to insomnia. Oblivion came abruptly when she despaired of sleep at all, and then, as quickly, morning, with Amy shaking her awake. The light from the three dormers was still uncertain and the air chill, for though the prized radiator clanked and whistled prodigiously, it emitted no warmth.
Jean sprang up hurriedly.
"Am I late?"
"No; early. I thought you'd better get down to Meyer & Schwarzschild's a little before time the first day. You'll have to wear your street-suit there, of course, but you need another skirt and a big apron for work. Just use these I've laid out as long as you like."
"But you'll need them yourself."