They did not exactly count on marriage.

Things would go on, though, in a dim kind of way until the better thing would eventuate, and Carrie would rewarded for coming and toiling in the city.

It was under such auspicious circumstances that she started out this morning to look for work.
Before following her in her round of seeking, let us look at the sphere in which her future was to lie.

In 1889 Chicago had the peculiar qualifications of growth which of young girls plausible.

Its many and growing commercial opportunities gave it widespread fame, which made of it a giant magnet, drawing to itself, from all quarters, the hopeful and the hapless those who had their fortune yet to make and those fortunes and affairs had reached a disastrous climax elsewhere.