s face.

"I do appreciate the way you feel about me," she said softly, "I do,
indeed! You may be sure that I won't do anything that either you, or my
aunts, would disapprove of!"

After all, she assured herself a trifle uncomfortably, she had in no way
told a direct falsehood. They had assumed too much and she had not
corrected their assumptions. She said fiercely, in her heart, that she
was not to blame if they insisted upon taking things for granted!

IX

AND ANOTHER

As the days crept into weeks, Rose-Marie no longer felt the dull unrest
of inaction. She was busy at the Settlement House--her clubs for mothers
and young girls, her kindergarten for the little tots, had grown
amazingly popular. And at the times when she was not busy at the
Settlement House, she had the Volsky family and their many problems to
occupy her.

The Volsky family--and their many problems! Rose-Marie would have found
it hard to tell which problem was the most important! Of course Lily came
first--her infirmities and her sweetness made her the central figure. But
the problem of Ella was a more vital one to watch--it was, somehow, more
immediate. Rose-Marie had found it hard to reach Ella--except when Lily
was the topic of conversation; except when Lily's welfare was to be
considered, she stayed silently in the background. But the flashings of
her great dark eyes, the quiverings of her too scarlet mouth, were
ominous. Rose-Marie could see that the untidiness of the flat, the
drunken mutterings of Pa, and her mother's carelessness and dirt had
strained Ella's resistance to the breaking point. Some day there would be
a crash and, upon that day Ella would disappear like a gorgeous butterfly
that drifts across the road, and out of sight. Rose-Marie was hoping to
push that day into the background--to make it only a dim uncertainty
rather than the sword of Damocles that it was. But she could only hope.

Bennie, too, was a problem. But it was Bennie who cheered Rose-Marie when
she felt that her efforts in behalf of Ella were failing. For Bennie's
brain was the fertile ground in which she could plant ideals, and dreams.
Bennie was young enough to change, and easily. He got into the way of
waiting for her, after his school had been dismissed, in the little park.
And there, seated close together on an iron bench, they would talk; and
Rose-Marie would tell endless stories. Most of the stories were about
knights who rode upon gallant quests,