dy is goin' to
blame her, it's me."

"Who be you?" said Mrs. Zelotes, sniffing.

Then she looked at them both, at Ellen and at her mother.

"If you go an' do what you've planned," said she to Ellen, "an' if
you uphold her in it," to Fanny, "I've done with you."

"Good riddance," said Fanny, coarsely.

"I ain't goin' to forget that you said that," cried Mrs. Zelotes.
She held up her dress high in front and went out of the door. "I
ain't comin' over here again, an' I'll thank you to stay at home,"
said she. Then she went away.

Soon after Fanny heard Ellen in the dining-room setting the table
for supper, and went out.

"Where did you get that money you paid the dressmaker with?" she
asked, abruptly.

"I borrowed it of Abby," replied Ellen.

"Then she knows?"

"Yes."

Fanny continued to look at Ellen with the look of one who is
settling down with resignation under some knife of agony.

"Well," said she, "there's no need to talk any more about it before
your father. Now I guess you had better toast him some bread for his
supper."

"Yes, I will," replied Ellen. She looked at her mother pitifully,
and yet with that firmness which had seemed to suddenly develop in
her. "You know it is the best thing for me to do, mother?" she said,
and although she put it in the form of a question, the statement was
commanding in its assertiveness.

"When are you--goin' to work?" asked Fanny.

"Next Monday," replied Ellen.

Chapter XXXV

When Ellen had gone to the factory to apply for work neither of the
Lloyds were in the office, only a girl at the desk, whom she knew
slightly. Ellen had hesitated a little as she approached the girl,
who looked around with a friendly smile.

"I want to see--" Ellen began, then she stopped, for she did not
exactly know for whom she should ask. The girl, who was blond and
trim, clad coquettishly in a blue shirt-waist and a duck skirt, with
a large, cheap rhinestone pin confining the loop of her yellow
braids, looked at her in some bewilderment. She had heard of Ellen's
good-fortune, and knew she was to be sent to Vassar by Cynthia
Lennox. She did not dream that she had come to ask for employment.

"You want to see Mr. Lloyd?" she asked.

"Oh no!" replied Ellen.

"Mr. Robert Lloyd?" The girl, whose name was Nellie Stone, laughed
a little meaningly as she said that.

Ellen blushed. "No," she said. "I think I want to see the foreman."

"Which foreman?"

"I don't know," r