d with her charge, who,
though still shambling of gait, and stooping, showed by some faint color
in her face and an increased steadiness of bearing that the food had
already strengthened her much.

"She would come," Aggie explained. "I thought she ought to rest for a
while longer anyhow." She half-shoved the girl into a chair opposite the
desk, in an absurd travesty on the maternal manner.

"I'm all right, I tell you," came the querulous protest.

Whereupon, Aggie gave over the uncongenial task of mothering, and
settled herself comfortably in a chair, with her legs merely crossed as
a compromise between ease and propriety.

"Are you quite sure?" Mary said to the girl. And then, as the other
nodded in assent, she spoke with a compelling kindliness. "Then you
must tell us all about it--this trouble of yours, you know. What is your
name?"

Once again the girl had recourse to the swift, searching, furtive
glance, but her voice was colorless as she replied, listlessly:

"Helen Morris."

Mary regarded the girl with an expression that was inscrutable when she
spoke again.

"I don't have to ask if you have been in prison," she said gravely.
"Your face shows it."

"I--I came out--three months ago," was the halting admission.

Mary watched the shrinking figure reflectively for a long minute before
she spoke again. Then there was a deeper resonance in her voice.

"And you'd made up your mind to go straight?"

"Yes." The word was a whisper.

"You were going to do what the chaplain had told you," Mary went on in
a voice vibrant with varied emotions. "You were going to start all over
again, weren't you? You were going to begin a new life, weren't you?"
The bent head of the girl bent still lower in assent. There came a
cynical note into Mary's utterance now.

"It doesn't work very well, does it?" she asked, bitterly.

The girl gave sullen agreement.

"No," she said dully; "I'm whipped."

Mary's manner changed on the instant. She spoke cheerfully for the first
time.

"Well, then," she questioned, "how would you like to work with us?"

The girl looked up for a second with another of her fleeting, stealthy
glances.

"You--you mean that----?"

Mary explained her intention in the matter very explicitly. Her voice
grew boastful.

"Our kind of work pays well when you know how. Look at us."

Aggie welcomed the opportunity for speech, too long delayed.

"Hats from Joseph's, gowns from Lucile's, and cracked ice f