udently to
Sarah Farraday that when she looked upon all that she had created she saw
that it was very good.

Even Emma Ellis has undergone a sea change; she's learned to do her
hair decently, and I've actually persuaded her that while it's quite
right to let her light so shine before men, it's different with her
nose, and you can't think what a dusting of flesh-colored powder does
for her! And I've got her out of blue serge and white blouses, and
into cream and buff and orange and brown, and I daresay Michael
Daragh will now fall in love with her excellent qualities and her
enhanced appearance, and I shall lose my best friend. (E.E. would
never allow friendships.) I shall probably wish I'd left her in her
state of Ugly Ducklingness, for I simply can't spare St. Michael from
my scheme of things!

CHAPTER XIII

Jane and the Irishman came into the Settlement one day to find the
superintendent red-eyed, with two books on her desk. It was clear that
she had been having a luxuriously miserable time. "I've just finished two
of the most powerful stories," she said, polishing the precious powder
from her nose with a damp handkerchief. "Every girl should read them--and
every _man_!"

"I wonder at you, Emma Ellis," said Michael Daragh, "the way you'll be
keening over a printed tale, when you've your heart and head and hands
full of real woes about you, surely!"

"Oh, Mr. Daragh, if you'd just sit down and read _I_ and _The Narrow
Path_! Both written anonymously,--and you just _feel_ the human
heartthrob in every line."

"I'll not be cluttering my mind with the likes of that, woman dear!"

"I've read them both," said Jane, slipping out of her furs and cuddling
into one of the great new chairs, "and I'm afraid I think they're fearful
piffle."

"Miss Vail!" Her face snapped back into its old lines. (Miss Vail really
mustn't think that because she was so situated, financially, that she
could do kind and generous things--which others would do if they
could--that her word was law on every subject!)

"I'll have to be reading them, to decide between the two of you," said
Michael, lighting his mellowed old pipe.

Miss Ellis winced a little as she looked at her new curtains.

"But it's good for moths," said Jane, catching her eye. "No, Michael, you
needn't fuss up your orderly mind with anything so frivolous and
distracting. I can tell you the g