`You'd find it dead
slow, wouldn't you?' says I. And she kind o' laughed and
looked almost human. `Then,' says I, `no more am I going to the
country. I'll take my chances in little old New York,' I says."
"I should think so!" exclaimed Susan.
"I'd like to be respectable, if I could afford it. But
there's nothing in that game for poor girls unless they
haven't got no looks to sell and have to sell the rest of
themselves for some factory boss to get rich off of while they
get poorer and weaker every day. And when they say `God' to
me, I say, `Who's he? He must be somebody that lives up on
Fifth Avenue. We ain't seen him down our way.'"
"I mean, go on the stage," resumed Susan.
"I wouldn't mind, if I could get in right. Everything in this
world depends on getting in right. I was born four flights up
in a tenement, and I've been in wrong ever since."
"I was in wrong from the beginning, too," said Susan,
thoughtfully. "In wrong--that's it exactly." Clara's eyes
again became eager with the hope of a peep into the mystery of
Susan's origin. But Susan went on, "Yes, I've always been in
wrong. Always."
"Oh, no," declared Clara. "You've got education--and
manners--and ladylike instincts. I'm at home here. I was
never so well off in my life. I'm, you might say, on my way
up in the world. Most of us girls are--like the fellow that
ain't got nothing to eat or no place to sleep and gets into
jail--he's better off, ain't he? But you--you don't belong
here at all.
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