She was now wholly immersed in the work of the settlement; but, though she had undertaken no distracting outside investigation, her indoor duties had thus far brought her into touch chiefly with children of the neighborhood, and from them, wise beyond their years as they were, she had learned only enough to feel that she had not yet come into touch with the great problems that her young heart was so eager to answer. In this first chance to give what she conceived to be practical help, it seemed to her that she was at last getting near to the heart of what she sought.
How near she had come to the heart of another problem, and how that problem was involved in the problem of her own life, she little guessed as she smiled into Violet's grateful face and, exacting another promise that the girl should report to her in any difficulty, bade her good-night.
XVIII
IN SERVICE
The house to which, next morning, Violet, still weak and still afraid of her enemies, made, with many timid inquiries, her slow way was in West Ninth Street, near Sixth Avenue. It was a four-story, grimy, brick house, with rows of prying windows through which no passer's eye could pierce, a dilapidated little yard in front of it, and a bell-handle that, when pulled, threatened to come off in Violet's fist.
The woman that answered this uncertain summons much resembled the building she inhabited. She was tall, and she had a sharp face just the color of the house-walls. The spectacles high on her beaked nose gleamed like the windows and, like the windows, conveyed the impression that they saw a great deal without permitting any outsider to look behind them. Her once formidably austere black dress was rusty, and her hands were so lean that Violet felt sure they must stretch when one shook them.
"What do you want?" asked this woman in a voice that cut like a meat-ax.
"Are you Mrs. Turner?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I heard you needed a girl."