Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she told all their woes⁠—what had happened to Ona, and the jail, and the loss of their home, and Marija’s accident, and how Ona had died, and how Jurgis could get no work. As she listened the pretty young lady’s eyes filled with tears, and in the midst of it she burst into weeping and hid her face on Elzbieta’s shoulder, quite regardless of the fact that the woman had on a dirty old wrapper and that the garret was full of fleas. Poor Elzbieta was ashamed of herself for having told so woeful a tale, and the other had to beg and plead with her to get her to go on. The end of it was that the young lady sent them a basket of things to eat, and left a letter that Jurgis was to take to a gentleman who was superintendent in one of the mills of the great steelworks in South Chicago. “He will get Jurgis something to do,” the young lady had said, and added, smiling through her tears⁠—“If he doesn’t, he will never marry me.”

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