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 for it was better furnished and cleaner than most of the others in the neighborhood.

Minnie and Nettie slept in a dark bedroom. The window opened out on a light well. A curtain shut off their room from the larger adjoining bedroom which was occupied by their father and the two boys. Mrs. Flynn slept on the red plush sofa in the combination parlor and dining room. But when Minnie talked of the flat to girls who had never been there, they always visualized it as large, airy and comfortable. For Minnie always spoke of Nettie's room, and her room, and the boys' room, and mother's room, and the dining room, and the parlor.

Nettie had been sick in bed for two weeks with tonsilitis, so they moved her from the bedroom to the parlor's red plush sofa. For a few hours in the afternoon the sun crept into the room and took some of the autumn chill away.

The parlor was in disorder when Minnie opened the door and stepped inside; the floor littered with papers, the table covered with bottles, a basin, towels and dirty dishes. Nettie lay sprawled out on crumpled pillows, her face flushed with fever, her greasy black hair matted and disheveled. Nettie was only twenty, but she looked twenty-five. Her features were coarse and a pendulous underlip gave her a dull sensuous expression. Her eyes, steel gray—very large and heavily, lashed like Minnie's—were her only charm.

Nettie didn't look up from the paper-bound novel she was reading until Minnie had said "Hello" twice. Then she nodded her head, adjusted the wet towel around her throat and went on reading.

"Gee, I thought you'd be out o' here by tonight." Minnie