pert.

"That would have been different. A steady job for years, and getting
higher wages all the time. I've told Jenny to engage the chance."

Years in a shop, doing one thing over and over! She recalled a sentence
she had heard Mr. Warfield quote several times from an English writer,
"But that one man should die ignorant who had a capacity for knowledge,
this I call tragedy!" She was not very clear in her own mind as to what
tragedy really was, but if one had a capacity for wider knowledge, would
it not be tragedy to spend years doing what one loathed? She hated the
smells of the shoe shop, the common air that seemed to envelop everyone,
the loud voices and boisterous laughs. And she wouldn't mind helping
someone for her board, and going to the High School. Why, she did a
great deal of work here, but it seemed nothing to Aunt Jane.

The frock was finished, and she washed it out, starched it, and would
iron it to-morrow morning. Then there were stockings to mend, although
the two younger boys went barefoot around the farm. And she worked up to
the very moment the carriage turned up the bend in the road, when she
ran and dressed herself while Aunt Jane packed the old valise. The
children stood around.

"Oh, Mis' Dayton, can't I come some day?" cried Fanny. "How long are
you going to keep Helen?"

"Till she gets tired and homesick," was the reply.

A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face
wonderfully.

They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen
questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of
the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.

"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She
hasn't a bit of gratitude."

"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned
Jenny with a laugh.

In the few years of her life, Helen had never been visiting, to stay
away over night. This was like some of the stories she had read and
envied the heroine. There was a small alcove off Mrs. Dayton's room,
with a curtain stretched across. For now the house was really full,
except one guest chamber. There was a closet for her clothes just off
the end of the short hall, that led to the back stairs, which ran down
to the kitchen, a spacious orderly kitchen, good enough to live in
altogether, Helen thought.

She helped to take the dishes out to Joanna, and begged to wipe them for
her.

"If you're not heavy handed," said J