."

The troubled look flitted across the woman's face for a moment, but her
desire got the better of her.

"I suppose my husband would think I was crazy to do it," she said aloud,
"but I just can't help trusting you. Suppose you come and stay with me
to-day and to-morrow, and help me out with this dinner party, and you can
stay overnight at my house and sleep in the cook's room. If I like your
work, I'll give you a recommendation as waitress. You can't get a good
place anywhere without it, not from the offices, I'm sure. A
recommendation ought to be worth a couple of days' work to you. I'd pay
you something besides, but I really can't afford it, for the washerwoman
charges a dollar and a half a day when she goes out to cook; but if you
get your board and lodging and a reference, that ought to pay you."

"You are very kind," said the girl. "I shall be glad to do that."

"When will you come? Can you go with me now, or have you got to go after
your things?"

"I haven't any things but these," she said simply, "and perhaps you will
not think I am fine enough for your dinner party. I have a little money. I
could buy a white apron. My trunk is a good many miles away, and I was in
desperate straits and had to leave it."

"H'm! A stepmother, probably," thought the kindly little woman. "Poor
child! She doesn't look as if she was used to roughing it. If I could only
hold on to her and train her, she might be a treasure, but there's no
telling what John will say. I won't tell him anything about her, if I can
help it, till the dinner is over."

Aloud she said: "Oh, that won't be necessary. I've got a white apron I'll
lend you--perhaps I'll give it to you if you do your work well. Then we
can fix up some kind of a waitress's cap out of a lace-edged handkerchief,
and you'll look fine. I'd rather do that and have you come right along
home with me, for everything is at sixes at sevens. Betty went off without
washing the breakfast dishes. You can wash dishes, any way."

"Why, I can try," laughed the girl, the ridiculousness of her present
situation suddenly getting the better of other emotions.

And so they got into a car and were whirled away into a pretty suburb. The
woman, whose name was Mrs. Hart, lived in a common little house filled
with imitation oriental rugs and cheap furniture.

The two went to work at once, bringing order out of the confusion that
reigned in the tiny kitchen. In the afternoon the would-be waitress sa