ter as it is?"

"Well, yes. I think of that a good deal. 'Supposing I had got to be a
real, genuine bloody hero?' I say to myself. 'What would it all have
come to, in the end?' I expect it was the best thing the devil could
have done for me, when he knocked me off my pins. Ah! here comes mother,
with Maggie."

Mrs. Bowen entered, accompanied by a plain, good-natured,
wholesome-looking girl, modest, but not awkward, coarsely but quite
neatly attired. She advanced to shake hands with Mr. Royden, and
inquired about Mrs. Royden and the children.

"They will all be glad to see you," he replied. "What do you say to
coming and helping us, next week?"

"I don't know how I can come, any way in the world," said Maggie. "Ma's
health is so poor now, I ought to be at home."

"I s'pose I shall have to spare you, if you think you would like to go,"
added Mrs. Bowen, in her sepulchral tone of voice.

Maggie colored very red. She seemed to know hardly what to say.
Fortunately, the grandmother in the corner attracted observation from
her, by crying out, with a shrill, childish laugh,

"So she did! he, he, he! Eggs ten cents a dozen, and all the hens a
settin'! That beat all the jokes I ever heard on! Eggs ten cents a
dozen, and five hens a--'s--'s--'s--"

The words died away in the old woman's toothless jaws; but her lips
continued to move, and her mind seemed to float lightly upon the waves
of an inaudible laugh. Mrs. Bowen broke the silence which followed.

"The truth is,"--what a ghostly tone!--"Maggie didn't like to work for
Mrs. Royden any too well, when she was there before."

"Oh, ma!" spoke up the girl, entreatingly.

"It's the truth. She liked your folks well enough, but there's
pleasanter families to work for."

"Fie, mother!" said Job, softly. "Let bygones be bygones."

"I am glad you spoke of it," added Mr. Royden, frankly. "My wife means
to be kind, but she has a good deal to try her, and she gets fretful,
now and then. I am troubled the same way, too."

"Oh, Maggie never said a word ag'in' you," rejoined Mrs. Bowen; "nor any
real harm of Mrs. Royden, for that matter. But, as I said, there's
pleasanter families to work for."

"Well, well!" cried Mr. Royden, desirous of getting away from the
disagreeable topic, "I think, if Maggie will try it again, she will find
things a little different. At any rate, she mustn't mind too much what
my wife says, when she is irritated."

"I suppose you will give a dollar a