Saturdays Child | Page 2

nature a leader, and generally
managed to impress her associates with her own mood, whatever it
might be. Various uneasy looks were sent to-day in her direction, and

by eleven o'clock even the giggling Kirk sisters, who were newcomers,
were imbued with a sense of something wrong.
Nobody quite liked to allude to the subject, or ask a direct question.
Not that any one of them was particularly considerate or reserved by
nature, but because Miss Thornton was known to be extremely
unpleasant when she had any grievance against one of the younger
clerks. She could maintain an ugly silence until goaded into speech, but,
once launched, few of her juniors escaped humiliation. Ordinarily,
however, Miss Thornton was an extremely agreeable woman, shrewd,
kindly, sympathetic, and very droll in her passing comments on men
and events. She was in her early thirties, handsome, and a not quite
natural blonde, her mouth sophisticated, her eyes set in circles of a
leaden pallor. An assertive, masterful little woman, born and reared in
decent poverty, still Thorny claimed descent from one of the first
families of Maryland, and talked a good deal of her birth. Her leading
characteristic was a determination never, even in the slightest particular,
to allow herself to be imposed upon, and she gloried in stories of her
own success in imposing upon other people.
Miss Thornton's desk stood at the inner end of the long room, nearest
the door that led out to the "deck," as the girls called the mezzanine
floor beyond, and so nearest the little private office of Mr. George
Brauer, the arrogant young German who was the superintendent of the
Front Office, and heartily detested by every girl therein.
When Miss Thornton wanted to be particularly annoying to her
associates she would remark casually that "she and Mr. Brauer" thought
this or that, or that "she suggested, and Mr. Brauer quite agreed" as to
something else. As a matter of fact, she disliked him as much as they
did, although she, and any and every girl there, would really have been
immensely pleased and flattered by his admiration, had he cared to
bestow it. But George Brauer's sea-blue eyes never rested for a second
upon any Front Office girl with anything but annoyed responsibility.
He kept his friendships severely remote from the walls of Hunter,
Baxter & Hunter, and was suspected of social ambitions, and of
distinguished, even noble connections in the Fatherland.

This morning Miss Thornton and Mr. Brauer had had a conference, as
the lady called it, immediately after his arrival at nine o'clock, and Miss
Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had
something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton,
delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so
uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and
attacked her work with unusual briskness.
Next to friendly, insignificant little Miss Murray was Miss Cottle, a
large, dark, morose girl, with untidy hair, and untidy clothes, and a bad
complexion. Miss Cottle was unapproachable and insolent in her
manner, from a sense of superiority. She was connected, she stated
frequently, with one of the wealthy families of the city, whose old
clothes, the girls suspected, she frequently wore. On Saturday, a
half-day, upon which all the girls wore their best clothes to the office, if
they had matinee or shopping plans for the afternoon, Miss Cottle often
appeared with her frowsy hair bunched under a tawdry velvet hat,
covered with once exquisite velvet roses, and her muscular form clad in
a gown that had cost its original owner more than this humble relative
could earn in a year. Miss Cottle's gloves were always expensive, and
always dirty, and her elaborate silk petticoats were of soiled pale pinks
and blues.
Miss Cottle's neighbor was Miss Sherman, a freckled, red-headed, pale
little girl, always shabby and pinched-looking, eager, silent, and
hard-working. Miss Sherman gave the impression--or would have
given it to anyone who cared to study her--of having been intimidated
and underfed from birth. She had a keen sense of humor, and, when
Susan Brown "got started," as Susan Brown occasionally did, Miss
Sherman would laugh so violently, and with such agonized attempts at
suppression, that she would almost strangle herself. Nobody guessed
that she adored the brilliant Susan, unless Miss Brown herself guessed
it. The girls only knew of Miss Sherman that she was the oldest of eight
brothers and sisters, and that she gave her mother all her money every
Saturday night.
Miss Elsie Kirk came next, in the line of girls that faced the room, and

Miss Violet Kirk was next to her sister. The Kirks were pretty,
light-headed girls, frivolous, common and noisy. They had a
comfortable home, and worked only because they rather liked the
excitement of