clothing."

"That is very thriftless."

"Yes. But I've heard it is the way so many poor people do. A great many
of those women work in factories or shops before they are married, and
afterwards, too, sometimes, and they have no time to learn to sew. When
I found out about Mrs. Torrence I thought I would offer to show her how
to cut and make those things. I thought doing that would be far greater
charity than making them for her would be."

"So it would."

"To be sure she goes out washing now and then, but she has time enough
to sew other days, as she only has those two little rooms to take care
of, and she hasn't been taking much care of them evidently."

"I thought they only had one room," said Marty.

"They have taken another now, as Mr. Torrence has steady work. Father
got him a place in a livery stable, and he's not a drinking man, so they
ought to get along."

"Well, how did Mrs. Torrence take your offer of help?" asked Mrs.
Ashford.

"She did not seem to like it at first. I suspect she thought I ought to
make the garments myself. But after a while she came around and--"

"Your pleasant ways would make anybody come around," exclaimed Marty
warmly.

"Thanks for the compliment," replied Miss Alice, smiling. "Well, the
amount of it is I have been giving her lessons, and she is really
beginning to do right well. The little tots look a great deal more
comfortable, and now I am going to show her how to alter some of the
clothes the Methodist Sunday-school ladies gave her, so that she will
have something decent to wear herself."

"I think you are getting into business!" exclaimed Mrs. Ashford. "It is
certainly very good of you to take all that trouble. And I should
imagine it is not the most comfortable place in the world in which to
give sewing or any other kind of lessons. Now Mrs. Scott is different.
Her room is always as neat as a pin."

"Oh, yes!" cried Miss Alice, "that reminds me there's more to my story.
These sewing lessons are actually making Mrs. Torrence cleaner and more
tidy. The first day I went the table was all cluttered up, and when she
cleaned it off for me to cut out on she looked rather ashamed of its
dinginess, and muttered some excuse as she wiped it over with an old
cloth. The next day that table looked as if she had been scrubbing it
all night--it was so startlingly clean. She had scrubbed a chair, too,
for me to sit on. Then I suppose she thought the clean table and chair
put the r