Chapter 10
“Look at those spangles, Miss Bart — every one of ’em sewed on crooked.”
The tall forewoman, a pinched perpendicular figure, dropped the condemned structure of wire and net on the table at Lily’s side, and passed on to the next figure in the line.
There were twenty of them in the work-room, their fagged profiles, under exaggerated hair, bowed in the harsh north light above the utensils of their art; for it was something more than an industry, surely, this creation of ever-varied settings for the face of fortunate womanhood. Their own faces were sallow with the unwholesomeness of hot air and sedentary toil, rather than with any actual signs of want: they were employed in a fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well clothed and well paid; but the youngest among t
