, but at any rate she--that is, you're
going to get your wages regularly every week, and I'm going to see to
it so that it shan't be neglected. And always come to me if there's
anything to ask. Please don't go to her unless about the back pay."

"Oh, Miss Elsie, you're so good!" cried Kate warmly, believing she had
arranged it with Mr. Middleton. "I'm sorry I complained. You must 'a'
known I didn't mean half what I said. I wouldn't really 'a' gone to
himself about it. But honest, I ain't got a whole pair o' stockin's,
and can't wear them pumps I got last summer on account o' the holes,
and her a-growin' yellower every day and a-layin' round and eatin'
chocolate drops and headache-powders that cost good money and ain't no
benefit."

She stuffed the money into a drawer of the table with a miscellaneous
assortment of less valuable things. While Elsie was wondering if she
could speak about the condition of the kitchen, which Elsie Moss would
have pronounced unspeakable, Kate drew near to her with real appeal in
her blue eyes.

"And, Miss Elsie, I wish you hadn't let what I've confided to you sort
o' set you against your aunt. Everybody has their failin's, they do
say, and after all if she don't do worse than eat choc'late-creams and
munch headache-tablets, why, she's pretty harmless as ladies go. Mis'
Jonathan Metcalf as goes to his church is just as yellow and I don't
know but what yellower, and bedizened as well, and a regular shrew in
her own house."

"Katy, I don't know what you mean," Elsie returned with dignity.

"Well, you call her Mis' Middleton, when you speak of her, with your
voice like a buzz-saw, and it ain't because you're high and mighty with
me, 'cause you ain't. You're like a sister to me, and I ain't once
thought of up and leavin' sence you come as I did frequent before. And
besides, when you talk of himself, you always say Uncle John. And
she's good at heart, Miss Elsie; honest, she is. She'd be just as good
as himself if she knew as much. Her heart's in the right place, and
she takes to you and don't mistrust you don't to her."

"Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen,
as you call it," said Elsie, rather neatly as she believed.

[Illustration: "Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding'
up your kitchen, as you call it."]

"Oh, there's plenty of time for that," Kate assured her cheerfully; "if
not to-day, why there's another comin'."