taurant and boarding-house life down to a frazzle. There wasn't any variety that we didn't know about-that was decent-and so we decided we had to have a home, even in this Bedlam of a city. Everybody scorned the idea They said we couldn't furnish five rooms for less than one hundred and fifty dollars at the lowest estimate (we had less than half that to spare) and that food supplies were so high that we'd find ourselves bankrupt the first month. But some inward monitor told me to try it, anyway. I persuaded the other two-girl friends of mine before coming here to go into it with me, and they're both pleased as Punch. Just see the spring sunshine pouring across my hyacinths and tulips! Isn't it sweet?"

Anastasia looked. Bars of clear sunshine lay across our little round diningtable of undressed wood, like a benediction on the lonely maids who gathered round it when their day's work was done, my canary sang loudly in his brass cage, the hyacinths sent gusts of fragrance into the sunny room from the plant on the sill, the wooden rockingchairs invited to comfort, our books and magazines gave the room a lovely, homey air, and out in the kitchen the crepe-papered shelves of the cupboards looked so fresh and dainty that I saw quick tears spring to Anastasia's eyes. "What did it all cost?" she asked, not knowing that I had seen.

"About seventy dollars", I answered, proudly. "I did all the buying, and when one of us has to leave, the others have promised to buy her out. Our three-quarter couches averaged ten dollars apiece; that is, the couch and mattress, blankets, comfortables and pillows, sheets and pillow-cases. The sitting-room rug was five dollars, and the fibre-matting one in the dining-room, three and a half. This reversible one for my bedroom was two-seventyfive, and these two bathroom ones, seventyfive and fortyfive, each. We have no dressers or chiffoniers, but anyone with a spark of ingenuity in this day of boxfurniture can contrive fair substitutes. Table linen, china, and 'silver' came to

five dollars, and the cooking-utensils to five; the dining-room table was eight, and the three chairs one dollar apiece. The two rockers were three and threeseventyfive, and the gas-stove was already in the kitchen. There are so many mirrors built in the walls, that we didn't need to buy any, and our pictures and books came from the depths of our trunks, of course. Each girl has her own little finicky way of arranging her room-which gives individuality. We go to the theatre whenever we feel like a fifty-cent seat, lunch or dine down town whenever we need a change, and divide the housework so that each has her week to cook, while the one who stays at home the most has to attend to the cleaning. A woman comes in to do the rough work, but she only asks seventyfive cents a day, and if you divide that by three-"

"What about your laundry?" asked practical Anastasia.

"There's every convenience for doing it any time you like", I answered. "Two tubs in the kitchen, steam-radiators to dry it on if it's raining, and a back-yard, fine, sunny and blowy to hang it out in, if it isn't. But we send out the larger things, and the bills average about fifty or sixty cents weekly. Our collars, jabots, handkerchiefs and 'sich' we do at home."

I saw something dawning in Anastasia's eye. "That's all very well," she announced firmly, "but what do you do about clothes?"

I countered with a mental right. "We don't spend all our income for mere living", I amended. "Each of us has thirteen to fifteen dollars left after paying room-rent and board. We try to save from five to eight dollars a month, and -did you ever visit the New York second-hand shops?"

"No," said Anastasia, dubiously. "Have you?"

"Well, I won't harrow up your soul by telling you what this suit that you like so much cost, but I'll give you a piece of information. If you know where to go, and are willing to wait your chance, you can fit yourself out as

regards a wardrobe for something like thirty dollars. I won't tell you just how to go about it now, for 'that's another story' of course, but the suit, hats and all the rest of it last more than a year, and always look nice and always keep their shape. You see they're first-class material, and sell for less than a third of their original cost. A friend told us about the plan, and we've fitted ourselves out that same way for the next year."

Anastasia sighed. "Forty dollars for this suit!" she said: "bought when I came away from home, and beginning to fray at the edges already. Fortyfive monthly for the seclusion of a ten by twelve bedroom and some food put on a table for you-I can't call them meals", she burst out. "It's the old plan of corned beef and cabbage on Monday, lamb or mutton Tuesday, lamb stew Wednesday, hash Thursday, and poached eggs Friday. By Saturday, I'm so desperate I could spend my last nickel for a jolly meal eaten in good company. Nobody ever talks at our boardinghouse. It's one of those dismal old places that have been fixed over as a resort for the lonely, impoverished in

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spirit, and strangers, and the diningroom is always covered with a black pall of silence. pall of silence. Sometimes I feel I could shout out loud, scream, dance, do some disgraceful thing: if only to break the awful dead wall that seems to shut that room off from the rest of the world. Last night I bought crackers and cheese and stuffed olives, and ate them off my trunk. I could not stand that room and those mute, hushed people, another minute. I should go dead, or crazy at least!"

"I know," I said sympathetically: "I know; we've been through it, too. Isn't it frightful?"

I patted Anastasia's hand, and suddenly Anastasia, the reserved, the quiet, the most uncomplaining and courageous girl I knew, flung herself on her knees at my side and buried her face in my lap. "Oh," she burst out, "will you promise me one thing-will you? will you? Oh, if ever one of your friends should-should leave this dear place, will you take me in? May I come in too?"

And, with my arms about Anastasia, and her wet cheek against mine, I answered with something like a choke in my voice too,

"Dear old girl, indeed, indeed you shall."

HE village of Milan, Ohio, may be

THE

said to cling to the map, as it were, by its finger-nails: having only a few hundred inhabitants. But its people are as proud as if it held its thousands: for a very distinguished man was born there.

In the latter part of 1846, a gathering of electricians, from all over the country, was held in this little town; and in the early part of 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was born. How much accidental stirpiculture may have occurred, with all this electricity and thoughts of electricity in the air, we do not know but the fact is a very interesting and suggestive

one.

At any rate, the little Milan baby grew up, and "made good"; and at the time I entered college, was a sort of patron saint of all inventors. As a student, I studied closely the subjects that he made luminous with his extraordinary genius, and determined some day to get near him. It was with this view, that, bright and early one May morning, I walked quietly but resolutely into his main office at Orange, New Jersey, and applied for the position of mechanical draughtsman.

It was a moment of some suspense, when I presented my "recommendations" to a tall, pleasant-looking man—the mechanical engineer-who I could see very well was an amiable but inexorable assistant of the great inventor. The testimonials were fresh from my university instructors; and I remember yet the smile that came on his face when he saw them. Edison was not a college

man, and the mechanical engineer knew it, and I knew it. He had had very little schooling before he left that town. of Milan, although his mother had instructed him the best she could, before his going on to one of the railroads as a train-peddler-boy. Legend, or tradition, says that it was on one of these trips that a belligerent brake:man suspended him over a car-platform by the ears, and gave his hearing a blight from which it never fully recovered. All along from the time he left home, he had been self-educated, and he probably had acquired the usual prejudice of selfmade men, against the average collegian.

The mechanical engineer spent very little time looking over my scholastic testimonials, but put me through an impromptu civil service examination that rasps me yet. He grew less and less cheerful of countenance as the ceremonies went on, and promptly disagreed with about everything I was bold enough to say. I began in my mind to recall the path to the railroad-station, and to wonder in which pocket I had placed my return-ticket to New York.

But it is a world of surprises: and Orange was on one of its hemispheres. Very unexpectedly, I was given a desk, and set to drawing up the details of a sketch.

I worked away, like a beaver: for I was bound to see Edison before I died, and, I hoped, under pleasant circumstances. But it is a world of disappointments, as well as surprises: and at the end of six days, I seemed no nearer to the great man, than when I

first got off the train at the station.

Neither did I know how well I was pleasing, or how vilely I was displeasing: no one seemed called upon to give me any information concerning the subject. It was every man for himself, and it seemed as if his Satanic Majesty was only too ready to take the hindmost. My associates were too busily at work to get very well acquainted with me; my fellow-employees did not seem to consider that ceremony a part of the business.

I was thinking this over one day-it was about a week from the time I com

15

five feet and eight inches in height, and hair fast turning gray, the parting of which was assisted and accentuated by a slight modicum of baldness, and that half-anxious, sound-seeking look that deaf people sometimes carry in their eyes. I had forgotten for a moment that he was considerably more than hard-of-hearing, or I would have shouted my greeting. But I hardly think he would have returned it, even if he had heard.

He asked of me in a tone that was a command rather than a request, for a particular one of the drawings I had

menced there when, unceremoniously as the coming of a Swiss avalanche, Thomas Alva came down upon me. I heard some one walking behind me; I looked hastily around: and-there he

was.

There was no mistaking Edison: I had seen his portrait o'er-often-and I am a good "hand" at remembering "lineaments." I had presence of mind enough to say "Good morning, Mr. Edison" but no good morning was handed back to me.

He was a fair-sized man of about

made during the past week; and, in my embarrassment and confusion, although sure that it was in my portfolio, I could not find it. I felt that moment as if I would have given a mortgage on one year's salary in advance, for a sight of that drawing. But millions, if available, would not have made it appear just then, and I had to sit and hear some very pointed remarks on the subject.

His words of disapproval were quick and jerky, as if he were telegraphing them. The statements came thundering

in, in lots of about ten words each. "You evidently don't know your business at all, young man."

"Your value to this establishment, is simply nothing whatever."

"Keep on this way, and your time here will be brief-very brief indeed." "Why did Schiffel employ such a useless and inefficient man?"

And so on-for several very interesting messages constantly increasing in voltage. I sat and received the despatches-there was nothing else to do. How could I argue-with a deaf man

me, from another portfolio, where some comrade-joker had no doubt placed it. Sometimes I have suspected that the whole thing was a "fake", and Edison was in it: he is a hard man to understand.

At any rate, I made my way into his office, armed with the paper, and grinning as sweetly as I could, under the circumstances. He was smoking a "corncob pipe", and seemed an entirely different sort of man from the one that had just left me, half an hour ago. He smiled, and invited me to sit down.

especially when I was undeniably in the wrong? And yet, it it was rather a homesick place, for a young fellow that had to make his way, without over-much money for a start.

He went, as suddenly as he came : and I cuddled down uncomfortably in my chair, waiting to be cast out into the Cold Bye-and-bye.

But all at once, it occurred to mewhatever that is that I might as well find the drawing, and present it to him on the silver server of a smile: and after a half-hour's wearisome hunt, it

"I'm glad you stuck to it till you found the drawing", he said. "My scolding was just to impress upon you the value of time. Just think of it! The world turns over 500 miles on its way round, in half an hour: and we ought to do a little progressing ourselves."

After that, we were good friends, and he seemed trying to make up for the untoward occurrence, by taking a special interest in me. He would sometimes come up behind me, slap me lightly on the shoulder, praise, although