ngrily.

"She 'ain't got but a precious little, unless she spends her
principal," said Andrew. "She 'ain't got more'n a hundred and fifty
or so a year clear after her taxes and insurance are paid."

"I ain't saying anything," said Fanny. "But I do say you're dreadful
foolish to take on so when you've got so much to fall back on, and
that money in the bank. Here you haven't had to touch the interest
for quite a while and it has been accumulating."

It was agreed between the two that Ellen must say nothing to her
grandmother Brewster about going to work.

"I believe the old lady would have a fit if she thought Ellen was
going to work," said Fanny. "She 'ain't never thought she ought to
lift her finger."

So Ellen was charged on no account to say anything to her
grandmother about the possible necessity of her going to work.

"Your grandmother's awful proud," said Fanny, "and she's always
thought you were too good to work."

"I don't think anybody is too good to work," replied Ellen, but she
uttered the platitude with a sort of mental reservation. In spite of
herself, the attitude of worship in which she had always seen all
who belonged to her had spoiled her a little. She did look at
herself with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact that
she might have to go to work in the shop some time. School-teaching
was different, but could she earn enough school-teaching? There was
a sturdy vein in the girl. All the time she pitied herself she
blamed herself.

"You come of working-people, Ellen Brewster. Why are you any better
than they? Why are your hands any better than their hands, your
brain than theirs? Why are you any better than the other girls who
have gone to work in the shops? Do you think you are any better than
Abby Atkins?"

And still Ellen used to look at herself with a pitying conviction
that she would be out of place at a bench in the shoe-factory, that
she would suffer a certain indignity by such a course. The
realization of a better birthright was strong upon her, although she
chided herself for it. And everybody abetted her in it. When she
said once to Abby Atkins, whom she encountered one day going home
from the shop, that she wondered if she could get a job in her room
in the fall, Abby turned upon her fiercely.

"Good Lord, Ellen Brewster, you ain't going to work in a shoe-shop?"
she said.

"I don't see why not as well as you," returned Ellen.

"Why not?" repeated the other girl. "Lo