Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1881-06-02

three months had gone when l found
she was intimate with the very class Of
| girls | least desired her to know. In
vain | expostulated with her, begged
her to go back in the country; but she
laughed at me, told mel was fanciful.
and she dared not offend the girls with
whom she slept. | suppose ladies
never dream of this hardship in the
life of shop-girl. They do not think
what 1t means to her when she has to
make one of four or five who herd
together in one bed room, with sleep
ing accommodations deemed insuffic.
lent for a servant in an ordinary
gentleman IS house, or how gradually
she once made her face Jingle with
shame when she heard it; and thus by
degrees she slips her old moorings of
happiness and self respect until she be-
comes like her associates.
81 cannot tell you how step by step
it came about, but | do know that all
unwittingly her employer was her MUIR
came with me to London as pure-heart-
ed as the happiest girl i'll the village,
and who left it the thing her lips would
once have refused to name. Without
my guessing how swiftly she was going
from me, | yet wrote to my mother,
begging her to come up town and per-
suade Emmie to go back with her. Full
of alarm, she came; but it was all to
late. My mother had lost her child,
and | my sister,"
Ethel Vernon had no need to ask
how, for Gertrude Maceys' face spoke
only too plainly of the irretrievably
wrong step taken. and, there is ..
sorrow which is the more passionate
because it must not find vent in words.
There are painful facts over which
painful Indignation rouses itself when
the irrevocableness of them confronts
the sufferer; yet woman can only speak
Of them to each other in ambiguous
phrases, and feel intensely their burden
without daring to proclaim the evil
doors who caused them.
The momentarv struggle to regain
her composure being over. a. Gertrude
Macy went on. "When first Emmie
told me her story, cursed her employ
er in my heart as | never thought it
possible | could curse any one. She
told me dying, and therefor with no
falsehood upon her lips, that it was al
most impossible to live good straight
life in that house. Employers don't
understand the damage there is, the
tritling they countenance, the mixing
together in their houses-and they
rarely care. Ladies are beginning to
care for us, but they would do for us
the best possible work if they first saw
that our home life was set to rights.
We do get tired of our work; we get
tired of standing, and we are grateful
for every aid that comes to alleviate
the hardness of our working life; but
they would do great deal more if
they would let the great employers
of labor know that they share our
instructive rebellion a ainst the homes
provided for us.
Somehow as Ethel Nernen listened
there was a picture before her eyes
which many of you will remember
George Eliot's creation of Hetty in
adam Bede," where Hetty turns her
face despairingly toward Storyshire,
and the author asks the question,
What will be the end?" The same
query arose in Ethel's mind and she
transposed it" What was the end?"
"She died by her own hand driven to
it by the sorrow and shame she had
brought on herself, but to which ladies,
in the shelter of their homes, have no
temptation.
Again in her pause Ethel Vernon
eceoed George Eliot's wish regarding
poor Hetty, only applying it to Emmie
Macey's story--"God preserve you
and me from being the beginners of
such misery"
"She died almost directly after she
sent for me, and it was as well Well
for her that she ended the pitifulness
of life; but |, for one, would rather
have been the dead girl lying there
than stood living in her masters place.
If you told this to the ladies who are
finding homes for US when we are in
valided and i'll, surely they would begin
for us a work Of reformation which we
are totally unable to commence for
ourselves | feel as if | would rather
die than go back to the old life after
having this pause of quietude here; yet
| shall 90 back and work on for the
sake of my mother and sister, or else
God nows-fall myself, and bring on
them wretchedness even more IN
tense than is now theirs"
could you not go back into the
country" questioned Miss Vernon.
Yes, at far less wages, and with far
less chances of future success as bus
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