promise that she leave promptly in the morning. The ensuing social scandal ruins Lily's reputation and almost immediately causes her friends to abandon her and Aunt Julia to disinherit her. Undeterred by such misfortunes, Lily fights to regain her place in high society by befriending Mr. and Mrs. Gormer and becoming their social secretary, so as to introduce the Gormers to high society and groom them to take a better social position. However, her enemy, the malicious Bertha Dorset, gradually communicates to them the "scandalous" personal background of Lily Bart, and thus undermines the friendship which Lily had hoped would socially rehabilitate her. Only two friends remain for Lily: Gerty Farish (a cousin of Lawrence Selden) and Carry Fisher, who help her cope with the social ignominy of a degraded social status while continually advising Lily to marry as soon as reasonably possible. Despite the efforts and advice of Gerty and Carry to help her overcome notoriety, Lily descends through the social strata of New York City's high society. She obtains a job as personal secretary of Mrs. Hatch, a disreputable woman who very nearly succeeds in marrying a wealthy young man in Lily's former social circle. It is during this occupation she is introduced to the use of chloral hydrate, sold in drugstores, as a remedy for malaise. She resigns her position after Lawrence Selden returns to warn her of the danger, but not in time to avoid being blamed for the crisis. Lily then finds a job in a milliner's shop; yet, unaccustomed to the rigors of working class manual labor, her rate of production is low and the quality of her workmanship is poor, exacerbated by her increased use of the drug. She is fired at the end of the New York social season, when the demand for fashionable hats has diminished. Meanwhile, Simon Rosedale, the Jewish suitor who previously had proposed marriage to Lily when she was higher on the social scale, reappears in her life and tries to rescue her, but Lily is unwilling to meet his terms. Simon wants Lily to use the love letters that she bought from Selden's servant to expose the love affair between Lawrence Selden and Bertha Dorset. For the sake of Selden's reputation, Lily does not act upon Rosedale's request and secretly burns the love letters when she visits Selden one last time. Lily is stopped on the street