“Both,” said Miss Jennings stubbornly and with a little frown on her face.

“If God is good, why is there so much misery?  If He is just, why are we subjected to such terrible oppression, and if He is merciful, why doesn’t He hear us when we pray to Him to help us bear our burdens?”

There was a ring of defiance in Miss Jennings’ tones.  As Faith looked at the pinched features her frame became almost convulsed with anguish.

“Oh, I wish I could answer all your questions, dear!” she cried softly, “and I can, I am sure, if you will just lay aside your bitterness!  You are holding black glasses to your own eyes, you poor child, but the light will come; you must keep on praying for it!”

“There is no use, Faith.  I’ve prayed until I’m tired.  But don’t mind me, dear.  I’m what they call a pessimist.  I look on the dark side of everything, I suppose; but listen, do you hear what that cash girl is saying?”

Faith shook her head.  She had heard nothing but her companion’s words.

“Jack Forbes is dying!  I saw it in the paper.  That’s why the old bear isn’t here to-day, I suppose!  It will just serve him right!  I’m not a bit sorry!”

Cash girl Number 9 laughed shrilly as she finished her announcement, and in the remarks that followed Faith learned who Jack Forbes was, and that he was a really fine fellow in spite of his gold-loving father.

In a second she understood also why Miss Jennings was still working.  No doubt she would be discharged as soon as Mr. Forbes came back to business.

She moved nearer to her companion as this thought flashed through her mind.

Just then a man stuck his head in the lunch room and looked around.  When he saw Faith he stared a minute, and then disappeared very suddenly.

“Hello!  Wonder who Hardy is after?” cried one of the girls.

“Who was he?” asked Faith in a whisper of Miss Jennings.  “I’ve seen him watching me several times this morning.”

Miss Jennings straightened up and looked at her a minute.

“He’s one of the house detectives,” she said slowly, “and you happen to be a new girl.  Don’t bother about him, Faith.  They are always watching some one.”

“Couldn’t hold their jobs if they didn’t,” chimed in a clerk who had overheard her.

“They have to arrest some one regularly about once in so often.  I hope some day they’ll arrest the wrong person.  It would cost old Denton a pretty penny!”

Just then another clerk from the ribbon counter came up and joined them.

“Did you hear about that inspector coming here yesterday, girls?  Well, it didn’t do any good, for old Forbes fooled her completely!  She didn’t get a peep at this room or a sniff at these odors.  He means to poison us all to death with sewer gas before he’s done with us, but perhaps it will be just as pleasant a death as any other.”

Faith Marvin looked up at the speaker with an expression of horror in her eyes.