Sister Carrie

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

ront room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of t

e was a 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 siste

"You can get in somewhere in

was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already paid a number of monthly instalments

ie found time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of

e floors were covered with matting and the hall laid with a thin rag carpet. One could see that t

sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his reading, came and took it. A pleasant side to his natu

, there," and there was a certain Sw

u?" said Minnie, when they were eating. "Wel

aid nothing to this. He seemed t

rrow. I've got Friday and Saturday, and it won't

her husband took this part of

, concerning the lay of Chicago. "You'd better look in those big manufacturing houses along Franklin Street and just th

in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about it, while Hanson concerne

go to bed," and off he went, disappearing into the

ards," explained Minnie, "so he's

et up to get breakf

wenty minut

Minnie undressed the baby and put it to bed. Minnie's manner was one of traine

a settled opposition to anything save a conservative round of toil. If Hanson sat every evening in the front room and read his paper, if he went to bed at nine, and Minnie a little later, what would they expect of

o herself, "he c

e mantel in the dining-room, and when the latter had g

will have to wait until you hear from me

name, and finally decided upon the severe, winding up with a "Very truly," which she subsequently changed to "Sincerely." She scaled and addressed the letter, and going in the front room, the alcove of which contained her bed, drew the one small rocking-

ns of pleasure and duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth. She had invited Carrie, not because she longed for her presence, but because the latter was dissatisfied at home, and could probably get work and pay her board here. She was pleased to see her in a way but reflected her husband's point of view in the matter of work. Anything was good enough so long as it paid--say, five dollars a week to begin with. A shop girl was the destiny prefigure

, with the ambition, the daring, the activity of a metropolis of a million. Its streets and houses were already scattered over an area of seventy-five square miles. Its population was not so much thriving upon established commerce as upon the industries which prepared for the arrival of others. The sound of the hammer engaged upon the erection of new structures was everywhere heard. Great industries were moving in. The huge railroad corporations which had long before recognised the prospects of the place had seized upon vast tracts of land for transfer and shipp

es, whose offices were upon the ground floor and in plain view of the street. The large plates of window glass, now so common, were then rapidly coming into use, and gave to the ground floor offices a distinguished and prosperous look. The casual wanderer could see as he passed a polished array of office fixtures, much frosted glass, clerks hard at work, and genteel businessmen in "nobby" s

y step by the interest of the unfolding scene, and a sense of helplessness amid so much evidence of power and force which she did not understand. These vast buildings, what were they? These strange energies and huge interests, for what purposes were they there? She could have understood the meaning of a little stone-cutter's ya

wall-lined mysteries to her; the vast offices, strange mazes which concerned far-off individuals of importance. She could only think of people connected with them as counting money, dressing magnificently, and riding in carriages. What they dealt in, how they laboured, to what end it al