ous hand, and straightened her linen collar, before
she sank into an easy chair.

"Child," she said abruptly, "_you_ shouldn't be tired--not ever! You've
got youth, and all of the world at your feet. You've got beauty, and
confidence, and faith. And I--well, I'm getting to be an old woman! I
feel sometimes as if I've been sitting on the window sill, watching life
go by, for centuries. You mustn't--" She paused, and there was a sudden
change in her voice, "You're not tiring yourself, Rose-Marie? You're not
doing more than your strength will permit? If you could have read the
letter that your aunts sent to me, when you first came to the Settlement
House! I tell you, child, I've felt my responsibility keenly! I'd no more
think of letting you brush up against the sort of facts I'm facing, than
I would--"

Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, as she
interrupted.

"Somehow," she said, "I can't think that you and my aunts are quite
right about shielding me--about keeping me from brushing up against life,
and the real facts of life. It seems to me that there's only one way to
develop--really. And that way is to learn to accept things as they come;
to meet situations--no matter how appalling they may be, with one's eyes
open. If I," she was warming to her subject, "am never to tire myself
out, working for others, how am I to help them? If I am never to see
conditions as they are how am I ever to know the sort of a problem that
we, here at the Settlement House, are fighting? Dr. Blanchard wouldn't
try to treat a case if he had no knowledge of medicine--he wouldn't try
to set a broken leg if he had never studied anatomy. You wouldn't be in
charge, here, if you didn't know the district, if you didn't realize the
psychological reasons back of the things that the people of the district
say and do. Without the knowledge that you're trying to keep from me
you'd be as useless as"--she faltered--"as I am!"

The Superintendent's expression reflected all the tenderness of her
nature; the mother-instinct, which she had never known, made her smile
into the girl's serious face.

"My dear," she said, "you must not think that you're useless. You must
never think that! Look at the success you've had in your club
work--remember how the children that you teach have come to love you.
You've done more with them, because of the things that you don't know,
than I could ever do--despite the hard facts that I've had to brush up