e a little. What's the
reason it's no use? What's made all the difference since Wednesday?"

Lucy's silence was like a barrier between them. If it had not been for
the tears upon her cheeks, Peggy would have been inclined to distrust
her memory of that momentary softening. The girl's confidence came at
last reluctantly, as if dragged from depths far under the surface, like
water raised in buckets from a well.

"My money's gone."

Peggy had an uncomfortable feeling that she must grope her way. "Your
money's gone?" she repeated, to gain time.

"Yes, the money I've been saving up. The money that was to help me get
through school next year. You know how I've worked this summer. And
there isn't a thing to show for it."

"How much was it?"

"Forty dollars."

All at once Peggy felt an insane desire to laugh. The impulse was
without doubt, purely nervous. For though there seemed to her a
surprising discrepancy between the sum named and the despair for which
it was responsible, the humorous aspect of the case was not the one
which would naturally appeal to a disposition like Peggy's. Desperately
she fought against the impulse, coughed, bit her twitching lips, and
finally acknowledged defeat in a little hysterical giggle. Lucy stared
at her, too astonished to be angry.

"There!" Now that the mischief was done, Peggy felt serious enough to
meet all the requirements of the case. "I've laughed and I'm glad of it.
For it's a joke. Forty dollars! A girl as bright as you are, ready to
sell out for forty dollars. It's enough to make anybody laugh."

Lucy put her hand to her forehead. "But it was all I had," she said
rather piteously.

"All you had. But not all you can get. Why, I had a friend who went into
a business office last winter. She's earning forty dollars a month now,
and they'll raise her after she's been with them a year. Forty dollars
means a month's work for a beginner. You've lost a month, and you talk
as if everything had been lost."

The rear door of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a
distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow
suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a
moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait
increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had instantly formed.

Lucy regarded her visitor with burning eyes.

"I didn't mean to tell anybody," she said. "I thought my pride wouldn't
let me, but