she hesitated and a slight flush rose in her face.

"Yes?" asked Helen wonderingly.

"If you would be so good as to not use the word _board_. I don't know
why it should be so offensive to me," she added with a little laugh.
"My ears are very sensitive, I suppose. But if you wouldn't mind
saying, in the course of your conversation, that you are _staying_ with
the Rosemount Armstrongs, it would please me so much."

"Certainly, I shall remember," said Helen, much relieved.

"Thank you so much. And now if you would like to rest for a little
after your journey you may. Supper will be served in the course of
half-an-hour."

Helen felt a lump growing in her throat that made the thought of food
choke her. But she dared not refuse. To remain alone in that big
echoing room, was only to invite thoughts of home and other far off and
lost joys.

When Miss Armstrong had left her, and her trunk had come bumping up the
back stairs and been deposited in the vast closet, she sat down on the
black haircloth chair and looked hopelessly around the big dreary room.
There rose before her a vision of her own room at the old home, the
room that she and her sister Betty had shared. It had rose-bordered
curtains and rose-festooned wall-paper and pink and white cushions.
And it had a dear mother-face peeping in at the door to chide her
gently if she sat too late writing those long letters to Dick.

The memory of it all came over her with such a rush that she felt she
must throw herself upon that broad white bed and sob herself sick. But
she sat still, holding her hands tightly clenched, and choking back the
tears. She had work to do and she must be ready for that work. To
give way in private meant inefficiency in public to-morrow.
School-teaching was a new, untried field of labour for her, and if she
went to bed and cried herself to sleep, as she wanted to do, she would
have a headache for to-morrow and she would fail. And she must not
fail, she told herself desperately; she dared not fail, for Mother was
depending upon her success. And yet she had no idea how that success
was to be gained. She knew only too well that she was not fitted for
her task. She had never wanted to teach school, and had never dreamed
she would need to. Her place had always been at home, and a big place
she had filled as Mother's help and the minister's right hand. But her
father had insisted upon her taking her teacher's certificate. "It's
easy