At the end of this somewhat agitating day I returned to my tenement lodgings as to a haven of rest.  There was one other lodger besides myself:  she was studying music on borrowed money at four dollars a lesson.  Obviously she was a victim to luxury in the same degree as the young women with whom I had lunched at the bakery.  Nothing that a rich society girl might have had been left out of her wardrobe, and borrowed money seemed as good as any for making a splurge.

Miss Arnold was something of a snob, intellectual and otherwise.  It was evident from my wretched clothes and poor grammar that I was not accustomed to ladies of her type, but, far from sparing me, she humiliated me with all sorts of questions.

“I’m tired of taffeta jackets, aren’t you?” she would ask, apropos of my flimsy ulster.  “I had taffeta last year, with velvet and satin this winter; but I don’t know what I’ll get yet this summer.”

After supper, on my return, I found her sitting in the parlour with Mrs. Brown.  They never lighted the gas, as there was an electric lamp which sent its rays aslant the street and repeated the pattern of the window curtains all over Mrs. Brown’s face and hands.

Drawn up on one end of the horsehair sofa, Miss Arnold, in a purple velvet blouse, chatted to Mrs. Brown and me.

“I’m from Jacksonville,” she volunteered, patting her masses of curly hair.  “Do you know anybody from Jacksonville?  It’s an elegant town, so much wealth, so many retired farmers, and it’s such an educational centre.  Do you like reading?” she asked me.

“I don’t get time,” is my response.

“Oh, my!” she rattles on.  “I’m crazy about reading.  I do love blank verse—­it makes the language so choice, like in Shakespeare.”

Mrs. Brown and I, being in the majority as opposed to this autocrat, remain placid.  A current of understanding exists between us.  Miss Arnold, on the other hand, finds our ignorance a flattering background for her learning and adventures.  She is so obviously a woman of the world on the tenement horsehair sofa.

“In case you don’t like your work,” she Lady Bountifuls me, “I can get you a stylish place as maid with some society people just out of Chicago—­friends of mine, an elegant family.”

“I don’t care to live out,” I respond, thanking her.  “I like my Sundays and my evenings off.”

Mrs. Brown pricks up her ears at this, and I notice that thereafter she keeps close inquiry as to how my Sundays and evenings are spent.

But the bell rings.  Miss Arnold is called for by friends to play on the piano at an evening entertainment.  Mrs. Brown and I, being left alone, begin a conversation of the personal kind, which is the only resource among the poor.  If she had had any infirmity—­a wooden leg or a glass eye—­she would naturally have begun by showing it to me, but as she had been spared intact she chose second best.