Why should she question the abiding belief? Emeline
knew that, with her father's good pay and the excellent salaries earned
by her hard-handed, patient-eyed, stupid young brothers, the family
income ran well up toward three hundred dollars a month: her father
worked steadily at five dollars a day, George was a roofer's assistant
and earned eighty dollars a month, and Chester worked in a plumber's
shop, and at eighteen was paid sixty-five dollars. Emeline could only
conclude that three hundred dollars a month was insufficient to prevent
dirt, crowding, scolding, miserable meals, and an incessant atmosphere
of warm soapsuds.
Presently she outraged her father by going into "Delphine's" millinery
store. Delphine was really a stout, bleached woman named Lizzie Clarke,
whose reputation was not quite good, although nobody knew anything
definite against her. She had a double store on Market Street near
Eleventh, a dreary place, with dusty models in the windows, torn
Nottingham curtains draped behind them, and "Delphine" scrawled in gold
across the dusty windows in front. Emeline used to wonder, in the days
when she and her giggling associates passed "Delphine's" window, who
ever bought the dreadful hats in the left-hand window, although they
admitted a certain attraction on the right.
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