ong the loudest.

"She knows what she _does_ want!" whispered a decent-appearing young
woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz
of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do."

"Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more
of Miss Henderson.

"I didn't say. It's country, though--twenty miles out."

"What wages?"

"I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards."

"Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?"

The prevailing expression of the assemblage changed. There was a
settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework.

One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One
young girl--she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country
for six years and more--caught her breath, convulsively, at the word.

"I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy
companion.

While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther
forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!"

"I don't think she would take a young girl like you," replied her
friend.

"That's the way it always is!" exclaimed the disappointed voice, in
forgetfulness and excitement uttering itself aloud. "Plenty of good
times going, but they all go right by. I ain't never in any of 'em!"

"Glory McWhirk!" chided the directress, "be quiet! Remember the rules,
or leave the room."

"Call that red-headed girl to me," said Miss Henderson, turning square
round from the dirty figure that was presenting itself before her, and
addressing the desk. "She looks clean and bright," she added, aside, to
Faith, as Glory timidly approached. "And poor. And longing for a chance.
I'll have her."

A girl with a bonnet full of braids and roses, and a look of general
knowingness, started up close at Miss Henderson's side, and interposed.

"Did you say twenty miles, mum? How often could I come to town?"

"You haven't been asked to go _out_ of town, that I know of," replied
Miss Henderson, frigidly, abashing the office _habitue_, who had not
been used to find her catechism cut so summarily short, and moving aside
to speak with Glory.

"What was it I heard you say just now?"

"I didn't mean to speak out so, mum. It was only what I mostly thinks.
That there's always lots of good times in the world, only I ain't never
in