eached her
face. That wore a fixedness of amiability which accentuated the
whole like a high light. She had not seen Ellen for a long time, and
she greeted her with delight.

"Bless your heart!" said she, in her sweet, throaty, husky voice.
"Go and get her some of them cookies, Fanny, do." The old woman's
faculties were not in the least impaired, although she was very old,
neither had her hands lost their cunning, for she still retained her
skill in cookery, and prepared the simple meals for herself and
daughter, seated in a high chair at the kitchen table to roll out
pastry or the famous little cookies which Ellen remembered along
with her childhood.

There was something about these cookies which Miss Mitchell
presently brought to her in a pretty china plate, with a little,
fine-fringed napkin, which was like a morsel of solace to the girl.
With the first sweet crumble of the cake on her plate, she wished to
cry. Sometimes the rush of old, kindly, tender associations will
overcome one who is quite equal to the strain of present emergency.
But she did not cry; she ate her cookies, and confided to Miss
Mitchell and her mother her desire to obtain a position elsewhere,
since her factory-work had failed her. It had occurred to her that
possibly Miss Mitchell, who was on the school-board, might know of a
vacancy in a primary school for the coming spring term, and that she
might obtain it.

"I think I know enough to teach a primary school," Ellen said.

"Of course you do, bless your heart," said old Mrs. Mitchell. "She
knows enough to teach any kind of a school, don't she, Fanny? You
get her a school, dear, right away."

But Miss Mitchell knew of no probable vacancy, since one young woman
who had expected to be married had postponed her marriage on account
of the strike in Lloyd's, and the consequent throwing out of
employment of her sweetheart. Then, also, Miss Mitchell owned with
hesitation, in response to Ellen's insistent question, that she
supposed that the fact that she had worked in a shop might in any
case interfere with her obtaining a position in a school.

"There is no sense in it, dear child, I know," she said, "but it
might be so."

"Yes, I supposed so," replied Ellen, bitterly. "They would all say
that a shop-girl had no right to try to teach school. Well, I'm much
obliged to you, Miss Mitchell."

"What are you going to do?" Miss Mitchell asked, anxiously,
following her to the door.

"I'm going t