bindery.

"What can you do, little puss?" said this gentleman, quite surprised.
"You look about large enough to play with dolls, like my Nina."

"I'm almost fourteen," said Katie, drawing herself up to her full height and trying to look sedate. "I'm two years older than Nina; I'm as old as your Bertie, Mr. Sanderson, and I must make some money."

"Must you, indeed?" said he, beginning to be more interested. "Don't I know your face? Let me see. Why, it can't be—yes, it is Katie Robertson! How time flies! It seems to me only yesterday that your father died, and you were a baby; but Bertie was one, too, then, that's a fact. How time does fly, to be sure! So you want to get into the bindery where your brothers are, I suppose?" Katie nodded. "Well, now," continued he, "it's most unfortunate, but there isn't a vacancy anywhere; we have five or six applicants now waiting for a chance. Why don't you try the mill?"

"The mill!" said Katie, "the paper-mill? But I don't know any one there; how could I go and ask strangers?"

"I think you're brave enough to ask any one," said Mr. Sanderson. "I suppose you'd find it hard, though, and perhaps no one would believe that you were old enough or strong enough to work. Your looks are against you, little one; and then, Mr. Mountjoy did not know your father as I did; he came here afterward. Let me see. Perhaps I might have some influence. Will you trust your case in my hands?" And, as the girl nodded, he continued: "Come here about this time to-morrow evening, and I will report progress. Perhaps I may have some good news for you, but don't be too sure. It isn't so easy to get into the mill either; there are always a great many applicants. You'll come?"

"Yes, sir," said Katie, and went away in a state of disappointed uncertainty. It was not quite so easy to earn money as she had supposed.

The little girl looked very mysterious all teatime, and threw out several hints that quite mystified her brothers about Mr. Sanderson and the bindery. But no one guessed her secret, and the next afternoon, just as she was beginning to think of putting on her hat and running down to get her answer, who should come into the gate but Mr. Sanderson himself.

Mrs. Robertson was greatly frightened when she saw him. She was one of those persons who always look on the dark side of things, and she feared her boys had got into trouble and would perhaps lose their situations. She trembled so that she could hardly put on the widow's cap, in which she always appeared before strangers (although it was now six years since the doctor had left her and gone home to heaven), and said to her daughter:—

"That's always our luck! Just as soon as things seem to be going straight with us, some terrible misfortune is sure to happen; we're the most unfortunate family in the world."

The poor lady forgot that, with the one exception of her husband's death, her life had been one of unmingled, as well as undeserved, happiness; and even in that loss her three children had been spared to her, friends had been raised up to help her, and there had never been a day when she and her children had not had enough plain food to eat and plain clothes to wear. It is thus that we are all apt to dishonor God by dwelling upon the one thing which in his providence he has seen fit to take away, and forgetting to thank him for all the many other blessings he has given us.

But Katie was full of expectation and suppressed delight. She was the opposite of her mother, and always expected good news, and she felt sure that Mr. Sanderson would not have taken the trouble to come himself, except to tell her that he had secured a place for her. Her eyes danced as she let him in, and she looked inquiringly in his face. But he said nothing, except:—

"Good-evening, Katie. I would like to see your mother a few moments." So she ushered him into the "front room," so seldom used, and went to summon her mother, waiting outside the door till she should herself be called in to the consultation.

When Mr. Sanderson told Mrs. Robertson that he had called to say that he had been successful in his application to Mr. Mountjoy, who had agreed to take Katie into the "rag-room" of the paper-mill, in consideration of his interest in her mother, she was completely taken by surprise and inclined to be offended with both gentlemen for their interference, as she thought it, with her business; but when she heard that the application came from the child herself, while greatly surprised, she could not but feel grateful to them for their trouble, and expressed herself so, while she nevertheless decidedly declined to allow Katie to accept the position, saying she was altogether too young and too delicate, and that she would not have her daughter disgraced by working for her living.

"For the matter of that," said Mr. Sanderson, "I shall be glad to have my Bertie take the place if you don't want it for Katie. I have a large family to bring up, and I want my girls and boys both to be independent. I hadn't thought of it for Bertie quite yet, but your Katie reminded me last night of how old she is; and I see she is none too young to begin."

This put a little different face on the matter, for Mrs. Sanderson and Mrs. Robertson had been intimate friends when girls, in precisely the same rank in life, although one had married a doctor and the other the overseer of the bookbindery. Moreover, Mr. Sanderson was known to be very well off and quite able—had he judged it best—to bring up his girls in idleness, as useless fine ladies. Perhaps it would not be such a disgrace, after all, and they did sorely need the money. Katie was not dressed as her father's child should be, and toil as she might, even with the boys' wages the widow could not make more than sufficed to keep up the little home. Then, too, her child would have to do something for herself when she grew up; she would have no one to look to but herself, and though teaching would be perhaps a more genteel way of support, it was a very laborious one, and would make it necessary to go away from home, as the Lloyd girls were going to do, and to remain away for several years, first at some higher institution of learning and then at the Normal School, and where would the money come from to pay the tuition fees, traveling expenses, and board bills?

All this passed through Mrs. Robertson's mind as Mr. Sanderson reasoned with her and showed her the foolishness of her objections, and finally the impatient Katie was called in, and informed that she might "try it for a while"; and then the visitor was thanked for his trouble, and took his leave.

This all happened a week ago. The intervening time had been spent in putting Katie's simple wardrobe in order and in making home arrangements by which Mrs. Robertson would not miss her daughter more than she could help, in those various little services which she had been wont to render. The last day had now come; to-morrow the new life was to begin, and Katie was clearing up the breakfast things for the last time when the conversation with which our story commences took place.

"I wish it was not in the rag-room," said Mrs. Robertson, by-and-by, when Katie, having finished her dishes and swept up the room, drew her seat to her mother's side and took up her work—the ruffle of the last of the six mob-caps she was to wear at her work.

"Why?" said her daughter, to whom the factory was just now a sort of enchanted palace, any one of whose rooms was delightful to contemplate.

"It's such a low, dirty place, I'm told, and there's so many common women and girls there."

"Well, I needn't talk to them, I suppose. I needn't be common, at any rate, and I can't get dirty in those great