hat makes you so tired to-day, Tessa?" said Katie, one morning when the
"rules" allowed the girls to speak.

"I don't know; I always do feel so in the mornings. It's awfully hard to
get up. Don't you find it so?"

"I did at first, but I am getting used to it now. By the time I am
dressed I am wide-awake and fit for anything. I don't see why you should
feel so; I am afraid you're sick."

"Oh, no; only stupid and sleepy; I'll wake up by-and-by," and Tessa drew
from her pocket a thin, square volume which was tightly rolled up. The
noon-whistles sounded just then, and Katie saw her companion curl
herself up on a box in the corner and at once lose herself in her book.

She still sat there when her friend returned, rosy and refreshed after
her warm dinner and two brisk walks, and, as there were still a few
moments before work must be resumed, the latter walked across the room
and playfully took the book from the other's hand.

"Don't! oh, please, don't!" said Tessa. "Time's most up, and I _must_
know what became of Sir Reginald!"

"You _must_ eat your lunch. Look, here it lies untasted beside you.
Tessa, you will certainly be sick if you go on in this way."

But Tessa did not listen; she had again firmly grasped the book, and was
greedily devouring its contents quite dead to outside things, till, the
bell ringing, Katie jogged her shoulder, and she walked slowly across to
the table where both girls worked, her eyes still upon her book. There
she set it up, still open, against a pile of packages of paper, and all
the afternoon kept casting furtive glances at it, often letting her work
drop and her hands hang idle, while she followed the fortunes of the
fascinating Sir Reginald.

Katie was in an agony; she loved Tessa, and did not want her to get into
trouble, as she would certainly do if her proceedings should be observed
by the overseer. Besides, was it honest thus to use time paid for by an
employer?

But she had no chance to speak to her companion, for as usual she
finished her work and went home, and whether her companion received a
reprimand from the overseer for not having completed her daily task she
did not know. Probably she did not, for it was an understood thing that
Tessa was not so strong as the other girls, and therefore so much must
not be expected of her.

The next day it was the same thing. Tessa looked tired out before the
day's work began, and well she might, for she had sat up nearly all
night t