gh another day of it! And
besides--I don't much like the other boarders at Rankin's, but they're
better than nobody. To go back at night to an empty room and sit there
till bedtime with not a soul to speak to--O, I couldn't stand it. I'd
get in a blue funk and end it all some night. I'm tempted to, as it is,
sometimes." She added, with a miserable laugh that was half a sob,
"Nobody'd care," and Olga heard her own voice saying earnestly,

"I'd care, Lizette. You must never, _never_ think a thing like that
again!"

Lizette searched the other's face with eyes in which sharp suspicion
gradually changed into half incredulous joy. "Well," she said slowly,
"if one living soul cares even a little bit what happens to me, I'll try
to pull through somehow. The Camp Fire's the only thing that has made
life endurable to me this past year, and I haven't enjoyed that so
awfully much, for nobody there seems to really care--I just hang on to
the edges."

"Miss Laura cares."

"O, in a way, because I belong to her Camp Fire--that's all," returned
Lizette moodily.

"No, she cares--really," Olga persisted, but Lizette answered only by an
incredulous lift of her thin, sandy brows.

"I must go now," she said, rising, and with her hands on Olga's
shoulders she added, "You don't know what this evening here has meant to
me. I--was about at the end of my rope."

"I'm glad you came," Olga spoke heartily, "and you are coming again
Thursday. Maybe I'll have something then to tell you, but if I don't,
anyhow, we'll have supper together and a talk after it."

To that Lizette answered nothing, but the look in her eyes sent a little
thrill of happiness through Olga's heart.

Olga carried the bit of linen to Laura the next evening, and told her
what she had learned of Lizette's hard life.

"Poor child!" Miss Laura said. "I imagined something like this. We must
find other work for her. Perhaps I can get her into Miss Bayly's Art
Store. She would not have to be on her feet so much there, and would
have a chance to learn embroidery if she really has any aptitude for it.
I know Miss Bayly very well, and I think I can arrange it to have
Lizette work there for six months. That would be long enough to give her
a chance."

"Would she get any pay?" Olga asked.

"Of course--the same she gets now," Laura returned, but Olga was sure
that the pay would not come out of Miss Bayly's purse.

Laura went on thoughtfully, "The other matter is not so easily