“Excuse me for asking the question,” he added, courteously, “but I feared if you remained with us, the accommodations in the boarding-house might not be pleasant for you, and I hoped you had some other place to which to go.”
“Thank you,” Brownie answered quietly, “but if you kindly consent to my staying, the boarding-house will do as well for me as for the others whom you employ.”
He opened a door opposite the one by which she had entered the office, and led her into a long room where a hundred girls sat at tables, their hands flying back and forth upon the hats and bonnets, as if their very existence depended upon the number of stitches which they could set in a minute; as it did, poor things!
“This is the wiring room,” explained Mr. Coolidge, “and I think you could learn to do this work more easily than any other; you are not strong enough to run a machine, and your fingers are too tender to finish off the tips,” and he glanced at the delicate hands from which she had drawn her gloves.
“Machines! Are hats and bonnets made by machinery?” she exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes,” and he smiled at her ignorance, then asked: “Do you think you would like to work here?”
“Yes,” Brownie answered, “and I think I can learn very readily.”
“Very well. Miss Walton, please come here a moment,” Mr. Coolidge called to the overseer of the room.
She came at his bidding.
A tall, angular, sour-visaged woman, who had been in the establishment for years, and her face grew darker yet when her eyes fell upon the delicate beauty of the young girl standing by her employer’s side.