" She ought to keep it for a time, anyhow,” said Hanson. " Has she gone downstairs?”

" Yes,” said Minnie.

" I’d tell her to keep it if I were you.  She might be here weeks without getting another one.”

Minnie said she would, and Hanson read his paper.

" If I were you,” he said a little later, " I wouldn’t let her stand in the door down there.  It don’t look good.”

" I’ll tell her,” said Minnie.

The life of the streets contained for a long time to interest Carrie.  She never wearied of wondering where the people in the cars were going or what their enjoyments were.  Her imagination trod a very narrow round, always winding up at points which concerned money, looks, clothes or enjoyment.  She would have a far-off thought of Columbia City now and then, or an irritating rush of feeling concerning her experiences of the present day, but, on the whole, the little world about her enlisted her whole attention.

The first floor of the building, of which Hanson’s flat was the third, was occupied by a bakery, and to this, while she was standing there, Hanson came down to buy a loaf of bread.  She was not aware of his presence until he was quite near her.

" I’m after bread,” was all he said as he passed.  The contagion of thought here demonstrated itself.  While Hanson really came for bread, the though dwelt with him that now he would see what Carrie was doing.  No sooner did he draw near her with that in mind than she felt it.  Of course, she had no understanding of what put it into her head, but, nevertheless, it aroused in her the first shade of real antipathy to him.  She knew now that she did not like him.  He was suspicious.

A though will color a world for us.  The flow of Carrie’s meditations had been disturbed, and Hanson had not long gone upstairs before she followed.  She had realized with the lapse of the quarter hours that Drouet was not coming, and somehow she felt a little resentful, a little as if she had been forsaken-was not good enough.  She went upstairs, where everything was silent.  Minnie was sewing by a lamp at the table.  Hanson has already turned in for the night.  In her weariness and disappointment Carrie did no more than announce that she was going to bed.

" Yes, you’d better,” returned Minnie. " You’ve got to get up early, you know.”

The morning was no better.  Hanson was just going out the door as Carrie came from her room.  Minnie tried to talk with her during breakfast, but there was not much of interest which they could mutually discuss.  As on the previous morning, Carrie walked down town, for she began to realize now that her four-fifty would not even allow her cat fare after she paid her board.  This seemed a miserable arrangement.  But the morning light swept away the first misgivings of the day, as morning light is ever won’t to do.

At the shoe factory she put in a long day, scarcely so wearisome as the preceding, but considerably less novel.  The head foreman, on his round, stopped by her machine.