s, Ellen, in more ways than one. No girl is going to eat breakfast
at six o'clock, walk three miles, and do good work without her lunch.
You can't tell me anything about that box. I sold it last Monday night
to Wesley Sinton, one of my good country customers. He told me it was a
present for a girl who was worthy of it, and I see he was right."

"He's so good to me," said Elnora. "Sometimes I look at him and wonder
if a neighbour can be so kind to one, what a real father would be like.
I envy a girl with a father unspeakably."

"You have cause," said Ellen Brownlee. "A father is the very dearest
person in the whole round world, except a mother, who is just a dear."
The girl, starting to pay tribute to her father, saw that she must
include her mother, and said the thing before she remembered what Mrs.
Sinton had told the girls in the store. She stopped in dismay. Elnora's
face paled a trifle, but she smiled bravely.

"Then I'm fortunate in having a mother," she said.

Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had excused
themselves and returned to school.

"There's a girl Ellen can't see too much of, in my opinion," he said.
"She is every inch a lady, and not a foolish notion or action about her.
I can't understand just what combination of circumstances produced her
in this day."

"It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. She waits on
her elders and thinks before she speaks," said Mrs. Brownlee.

"She's mighty pretty. She looks so sound and wholesome, and she's neatly
dressed."

"Ellen says she was a fright the first two days. Long brown calico dress
almost touching the floor, and big, lumbering shoes. Those Sinton people
bought her clothes. Ellen was in the store, and the woman stopped her
crowd and asked them about their dresses. She said the girl was not
poor, but her mother was selfish and didn't care for her. But Elnora
showed a bank book the next day, and declared that she paid for the
things herself, so the Sinton people must just have selected them.
There's something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong I am sure. I'll
encourage Ellen to ask her again."

"I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on giving away her
lunch."

"She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week."

"She did!"

"Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost. You know the Bird Woman works
there a great deal, and probably knows her that way. I think the girl
gathers specimens for her. Ellen says s