Morning journal and courier., 1891-03-25

uost attractlFe ngure, With her neatly hung skirts, her pointed shoes, her close hat setting so snugly over her beautiful, smooth braided hair, her sallow, high bred face, with the rice-powder thick on the bridge of her nose, and her general air of calm unconcern. When she gets far up- town she turns suddenly to the left, and, walking down a block, waits on the corner for 0 car. While she stands there one sees how nervously alert and sharp this young woman's indifferent eyes can become. They shoot anxious glances up and down the street. When the car comes she springs into it with undignified speed, and nestled in a corner of it, her feet buried in the straw, the draughts blowing her hair about, she is borne across town to re- gions of corner groceries and dingy board ing houses, unkempt children and frowsy miads-of- -all-work.
 She does not stay in this obscurity for long. That evening, at half-past eight, she and her mother have just rustled into their seats in the parquet for a Bernhardt first-night. She has on a pale-gray dress. and wears some long -stemmed Jack roses fastened on her corsage. Her palegr wrap is thrown back to show these, for Jack roses are very rare at this season Her black hair is braided under a little gray gauge theater-hat. She is altogether as well dressed as any one in the house. and many people look at her and ask who she is. Nobody knows, however. This is particularly strange, for she appears to know every one who is any one. She points them out to her mother, speaking of them with intimate personal comment. as though they were her friends since childhood:
 The lady to the right, in the red hat, is Mrs. So-and-So. She has grown fat since she was at IennoX-the So-and-So wo- men were always inclined to run to fat. That was Tommy Thingumbob there by the door. Isn't he getting baldl He must be tired, poor fellow; he was up till all hours last night leading Mrs. Montgomery Jenkins german. That girl there. with the turnedup nose, is the youngest of the Marshmallow girls-Toosie. They say she is going to marry young Doosenbury- the Doosenbury whose sister eloped with the coachman. Awfully sad affair. It nearly killed her mother. Betty Smith is sitting in the first TOW of the balcony with the Tompkinses. Betty looks very pretty tonight, yellow becomes her-and so on, and so on all through the evening To hear her talk you would think this young woman the most intimate friend of these people, upon whom she comments in rather a loud key. Then, when the lady next to her is looking at her with curious admiration, she suddenly feels that the lit tie flagree-edged comb is slipping out of her back hair, and draws of her glove that her hand may be free to adjust it. The hand thus revealed is wonderfully slim, white and delicate, and is covered with pretty rings-not magnificent rings, they are not the thing for young laGy, but dainty, pretty rings of small, glitter ing stones.
 Half an hour after the performance is over she and her mother are in the corner of the erosstown car, on the last stage of their homeward journey. They sit close together, for it is biting cold. The people in the car are sordid-looking lot, who stare stolidly at the two ladies. Through the rattling windows come in freezing blasts of air, and no matter how deeply you bury your feet in the straw it is i'm possible to keep them warm. When they finally get to the wretched boarding house where they live it is past twelve and the house is dark. They stumble upstairs, tired and stiff, to the two tiny rooms, un- der the leads, which is their home. It is so cold up here that there is already skim of ice on the water in the pitchers and before they retire they spread their heavy ulsters and cloaks over the beds to act as coverlets. The mother is soon asleep, but the daughter, the ruling passion strong even in an atmosphere like that of a cold-storage warehouse, dallies long and lovingly over the putting away of her fine ", smothes it out, hangs it up, puts it into boxes. and folds it into bureau-draw- erf, finally becomes so engrossed that she takes out some of her new costumes still in process of construction, and, shivering in her meagre deshabille, holds them of at arms length, rapturously gloating on their beauty.
 The creating and wearing of a new dress is the great event of her life. All the morning she and her mother sit up in their little room, their feet against an oil-stove, | cutting, shipping and fitting on. The so- | lemnity of the occasion is such that they | do very little talking, but bend over their work in absorbed silence. An observer would hardly recognize them as the two | aristocratic ladies who created quite sen sation at "Fedora" last night The moth CT is now fat and somewhat blowsy per son, shrouded ill vOluminous Mother | Hubbard" her front hair twined round hair-pins. The nymph-like daughter looks thin and haggard in the searching light; her curls have gone and her hair is wound | up in tight little knob on the back of her head. Her wrapper is dirty and faded, and hangs round her long, straight figure in limp folds. Even her rings have dis appeared, locked up in a little box on the l toilet-tablc.
 In the afternoon she will go for stroll on the avenue, and come home at half past four, happy in the consciousness that for | two hours she has been a swell. Such is the life of this modern Cinderella. She cares for nothing but this daily masquer- ade Her existence is singularly lonely and proftless. She has no "circle," no friends. She will not associate with the people in the boarding house-the feeble, half-starved, shabby -genteel kind which haunt such barren places-and she has no means of knowing any other sort of peo- pie. The goal of her ambition is to be a fine lady, not in fact, but in appearance, and for this she lives.
 She and her mother have tiny income, left them by her dead father. They are both remarkably clever dressmakers, and if they had chosen to ply this trade they could have placed themselves in thorough ly comfortable circumstances. But the daughter would not hear of such thing. Their talents are employed to copy the VA rious dresses she sees in the shops, on the
 streets, at the tEeaters, in order that she
 and her mother may make a good showing
 when they walk abroad. Their manner ot
 living is poor past belief. They are only
 half fed and certainly half-frozen. For
 some times the materials that the daughter
 chooses to buy are extremely expensive,
 and when there is q particularly fashiona'
 ble first night they save ont of their break
 lasts and dinners enough tn buy the two
 best seats in the house.
 They always buy these themselves. The
 young lady hes no followers, no beans, nc