The Girls of Central High on the Stage

was dark and dreary enough. Especially was this so at the "poverty-stricken end," as Josephine Morse called her section of the street. Jess and her widowed

reets as though ashamed of itself, leaving a deposit of slime on all the crosswalks, and making the corner street-la

rner. She carried a basket on her arm and she had given the clerk rather a long list of necessary things, although she had studied to make the quantiti

seven cents, Mi

our bill," said the girl, flushing.

erk, seemingly as much embarrassed as the girl herself, and he stepp

f which the wisp of reddish-gray hair could not hide, had observed it all. He got down

is more than twenty dollars without this list of goods to-night," and he

of money just now

ase your indebtedness," and his pudgy hand lift

pay for these goods you've ordered

ance. "We will pay you-we always have. Mother sometimes has to wait for her money

ll run more than twenty dollars. 'Specially where there's no man in the family. Hard to collect from a

h, for there was somebody else entering th

you goods for years," returned Mr. Closewick, grimly. "The sheriff would have sold me out

us for this single o

now, Miss Jess! You go home and tell your mother how it is. I'll keep this basket

or the moment as though she should sink, "We haven't any money-at present. If we had I

ket-making a show of so doing in the presence of the newly arrived customer. "And what can I do for you, this eve

wn!" thought the girl, as she hurried into the

-work being her entire means of income, there were sometimes weary waitings for checks. Jess had been used to these unpleasant occasions ever since she was a very little girl. H

pty pantry, their credit cut off at the store where they had always traded, and no credit e

re her in the face and to-night she felt as though each proprietor would demand a "payment on account

member. Laura Belding, her very dearest friend, would be there and would wonder why she, Jess, did not appear. And after the reception Chet Beldin

around the bottom and the front breadth was sorely stained. And she hadn't another gown fit to put on in the evening. She did so long for

d as she approached, with hesitating steps, t

her need a whole lot of courage, or a lot of m

er brown study by hearing somebod

u going to look ar

raincoat, ran under Jess's umbrella and seized her arm. She was a laughing

ok back on the street-no matte

turned to salt, Bobby?"

?" laughed Clara Hargrew, whose yo

demanded the harum-scarum Bobby. "You're a Moth

to do?" returned Jess, trying to sp

her into Mr. Vandergriff's store. Suppose the butt

ouse and it was all lit up like-like a hotel. And Mr. Sharp was just coming out with

ed Jess, only half inte

ce to win a prize, or so

now?" Jess showed

as he was helping Mrs. Kerric

, indeed. Two hundred dollars! And a chance for any smart girl to win it!'-just like t

rned Jess, more eagerly. "Two hundre

candy and ice-cream s

ence, for mother and me, between penury and independence! Oh, de

t the younger girl was saying. Two hundred dollars! And she and her mother did not have a