" Well, here we are,” said Drouet, leading the way to the door.  “Good-bye, till I see you Monday.”

“Good-bye,” she answered, taking his proffered hand.  Remember, I’ll be looking till you find your sister smiled into his eyes.

They filed out, and he affected to take no notice of her.  A lean-faced, rather commonplace woman recognized Carrie on the platform and hurried forward.

“Why, Sister Carrie!” she began, and there was a perfunctory embrace of welcome.

Carrie realized the change of affect ional atmosphere at once.  Amid all the maze, uproar, and novelty she felt cold reality taking her by the hand.  No world of light and merriment.  No round of amusement.  Her sister carried with her most of the grimness of shift and toil.

“Why, how are all the folks at home?” she began; “how is father, and mother?”

Carrie answered, but was looking away.  Down the aisle, toward the gate leading into the waiting-room and the street, stood Drouet.  He was looking back.  When he saw that she saw him and was safe with her sister he turned to go, sending back the shadow of a smile.  Only Carrie saw it.  She felt something lost to her when he moved away.  When he disappeared she felt his absence thoroughly.  With her sister she was much alone, a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea.

Chapter II WHAT POVERTY THREATENED:  OF GRANITE AND BRASS

Minnie’s flat, as the one-floor resident apartment were then being called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year.  It was on the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where, at night the lights of grocery stores were shinning and children were playing.  To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horses-cars, as it was novel.

She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.

Mrs. Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby and proceed to get supper.  Her husband asked a few questions and sat down to read the evening paper.  He was silent man, American born, of a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at the stock-yards.  To him the presence or absence of his wife’s sister was a matter of indifference.  Her personal appearance did not affect him one way or the other.  His one observation to the point was concerning the chances of work in Chicago.

“It’s a big place” he said.  “You can get in some where in a few days.  Everybody does” It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and pay her board.  He was of a clean, saying disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly installments on two lots far out the West Side.  His ambition was some day to build a house on them.