it; after a while her brain had so
informed her fingers that they had learned their lesson well enough
to leave her free to think, if only the girl at her side would let
her alone. The girl had a certain harsh beauty, coarsely curling red
hair, a great mass of it, gathered in an untidy knot, and a
brilliant complexion. Her hands were large and red. Ellen's
contrasted with them looked like a baby's.

"You 'ain't got hands for workin' in a shoe-shop," said Mamie Brady,
presently, and it was impossible to tell from her tone whether she
envied or admired Ellen's hands, or was proud of the superior
strength of her own.

"Well, they've got to work in a shoe-shop," said Ellen, with a short
laugh.

"You won't find it so easy to work with such little mites of hands
when it comes to some things," said the girl.

It began to be clear that she exulted in her large, coarse hands as
being fitted for her work.

"Maybe mine will grow larger," said Ellen.

"No, they won't. They'll grow all bony and knotty, but they won't
grow any bigger."

"Well, I shall have to get along with them the best way I can,"
replied Ellen, rather impatiently. This girl was irritating to a
degree, and yet there was all the time that vague dejection about
her, and withal a certain childishness, which seemed to insist upon
patience. The girl was really older than Ellen, but she was
curiously unformed. Some of the other girls said openly that she was
"lacking."

"You act stuck up. Are you stuck up?" asked Mamie Brady, suddenly,
after another pause.

Ellen laughed in spite of herself. "No," said she, "I am not. I know
of no reason that I have for being stuck up."

"Well, I don't know of any either," said the other girl, "but I
didn't know. You sort of acted as if you felt stuck up."

"Well, I don't."

"You talk stuck up. Why don't you talk the way the rest of us do?
Why do you say 'am not,' and 'ar'n't'; why don't you say 'ain't'?"

The girl mimicked Ellen's voice impishly.

Ellen colored. "I am going to talk the way I think best, the way I
have been taught is right, and if that makes you think I am stuck
up, I can't help it."

"My, don't get mad. I didn't mean anything," said the other girl.

All the time while Ellen was working, and even while the exultation
and enthusiasm of her first charge in the battle of labor was upon
her, she had had, since her feminine instincts were, after all,
strong with her, a sense that Robert Lloyd was under