ould earn anything--and in the mean time? She looked at
the pile of her school-books on the table. She had been studying
hard all summer. The thirst for knowledge was as intense in her as
the thirst for stimulants in a drunkard.

"I ought to give up going to college, and go to work in the shop,"
Ellen said to herself, and she said it as one might drive a
probing-knife into a sore. "I ought to," she repeated. And yet she
was far from resolving to give up college. She began to argue with
herself the expediancy, supposing that the money in the bank was
gone, of putting a mortgage on the house. If her father continued to
have work, they might get along and pay for her aunt, who might, as
the doctor had said, not be obliged to remain long in the asylum if
properly cared for. Would it not, after all, be better, since by a
course at college she would be fitted to command a larger salary
than she could in any other way. "I can support them all," reflected
Ellen. At that time the thought of Robert Lloyd, and that awakening
of heart which he had brought to pass, were in abeyance. Old powers
had asserted themselves. This love for her own blood and their need
came between her and this new love, half of the senses, half of the
spirit.

Amabel waked up in the early sultry dawn of the summer day with the
bewilderment of one in a new world. She stared at the walls of the
room, at the shaft of sunlight streaming in the window, then at
Ellen.

"Where am I?" she inquired, in a loud, querulous plaint. Then she
remembered, but she did not cry; instead, her little face took on a
painfully old look.

"You are here with cousin Ellen, darling, don't you know?" Ellen
replied, leaning over her, and kissing her.

Amabel wriggled impatiently away, and faced to the wall. "Yes, I
know," said she.

That morning Amabel would not eat any breakfast, and Fanny suggested
that Ellen take her for a ride on the street-cars. "We can get along
without you for an hour," she whispered, "and I am afraid that child
will be sick."

So Ellen and Amabel set out, leaving Fanny and the dressmaker at
work, and when they were returning past the factories the noon
whistles were blowing and the operatives were streaming forth.

Ellen was surprised to see her father among them as the car swept
past. He walked down the street towards home, his dinner-bag
dangling at his side, his back more bent than ever.

She wondered uneasily if her father was ill, for he never