ad a mute rebuke.

"I'd rather lose him forever than deceive him!"

"Marta," said Pen impressively, "Diogenes should have known you."

"Who is he, Miss Lamont?"

"Never mind, Marta. I thought I knew what love meant, but I see I didn't
until now. If I loved a man as you do yours, I would stop stealing if I
had to cut my hands off to do it."

"I have stopped. I know now that I could have stopped long ago, if any one
had given me the right boost, or made me want to stop."

Just then Pen's eyes caught sight of a trunk in the corner of her room.

"What's that here for?" she asked.

"Oh, please, Miss Lamont, I brought it to you. I never touched anything in
it. I earned enough to buy what I am wearing and a few things in my
suitcase, besides what I had on that day--"

"Marta, that's sweet in you. I am beginning to feel I'd like to tog once
more. I shall reward you. But first, will you do something for me?"

"You know I will be glad to do anything."

"I want a note delivered. I'll write it now."

Hastily she wrote a few lines at her desk.

"Come with me, Marta. We'll have to go to a certain vine-clad pergola by
devious routes to avoid three wise children and one suspicious and
formidable foreman."

By much circumambulation the two girls reached the pergola unseen.

"You sit here for a few moments, Marta, and the person to whom you are to
give the note will come to you."

Pen walked on to the barracks where she met Jo.

"Will you do something for me, Jo? Right away, quick?"

"Sure thing, Miss Penny Ante. What did his nibs want?"

"Never mind, now. Go to the pergola and receive a note from me. Now don't
be stupid. Do as you are told,--like a good soldier does."

With a laugh Jo started in swinging gait for the place indicated, but he
was halted several times by some of the men who wanted directions for
their work.

After waiting patiently, Marta concluded Pen's plans had miscarried, so
she started for the house, but becoming confused as to turns, she went
toward the barracks.

To a little girl whose life had been spent in slums and reformatories, the
big spaces and silences were more appalling than the wildest hours of
traffic on misguided State Street. She had a strange inclination to walk
down hill backward that she might not see what other ascension must be
made.

"If I'd only been born as high up as this, maybe I'd never have got down
so low," she philosophized.

She came around a bend in the roa