an_!" Sonia sat up straight and stared
with startled eyes at the grave face opposite her.

"Think, Sonia," said Olga in a low voice, though her heart was beating
furiously, "how it would seem to you if I should refuse to work and
expect you to support me."

"That's different," Sonia muttered sullenly.

"How is it different?"

"Because you've got your work--I haven't any."

"But you might have if you would."

"Much you know about it! Did you ever try to find a place in a store?"

"When I was thirteen and you left mother and me"--Olga's voice was very
low now, but it thrilled with bitter memories--"I walked the streets for
three long days hunting for work, and I found it at last in a laundry
where I stood from seven in the morning till six at night, with only
fifteen minutes at noon. And I stayed there while mother lived, going
back to her to care for her through those long dreadful nights of
misery. That is what I know about hard work, Sonia!"

It was Sonia's turn now to be silent. There was something in Olga's
white face and blazing eyes that stilled even her flippant tongue. For a
moment her thoughts drifted back, and perhaps for the first time she
fully realised what her going then had meant to the little sister upon
whose shoulders she had left the heavy burden. But she banished these
unpleasant memories with a shrug. "O well, all that's past and gone--no
use in raking it up again," she declared.

"No, no use," Olga admitted. "But, Sonia, I want you to realise that I
mean just what I say. You have come here of your own accord. If you stay
you must share our expenses. If you will not, I surely shall go away,
and leave you to pay all yourself."

Seeing that her sister was determined, Sonia suddenly melted into weak
tears. "You are so hard, Olga!" she sobbed. "I don't believe you have
any heart at all."

"Maybe not," was the grim response. "I've thought sometimes it was
broken--or frozen--five years ago."

"You keep harking back to that!" Sonia moaned. "I'm not the first girl
that has gone away with the man she loved. You have no sympathy--you
make no allowances. And I didn't realise how sick mother was. If I
had----"

"If you had," Olga interrupted, "you would have done exactly the same.
But let that pass. Are you going to give me the promise that I ask?"

"What do you want me to promise?" Sonia evaded.

"I want you to promise that you will go out every week day and look for
work--that you will keep