r
like himself--a good provider, an' all, that'd doll her up the way she'd
oughter be dolled up? And when Ella had interrupted, her dark eyes
flashing, he had told her--with a burst of soul-chilling profanity--to
mind her own business.

And then Pa had come in--apparently more drunk than he had ever been. And
Rose-Marie had seen his bleary eyes pass, without a flicker of interest,
over his wife's clean apron and freshly washed hair; had seen him throw
his coat and his empty bottle into one of the newly dusted corners, had
seen his collapse into a heap in the center of the room. And, last of
all, as she had hurried away, with Jim's final insinuation ringing in her
ears, she had known the fear that all was not well with Bennie--for
Bennie came in every afternoon before she left. She could not know that
Bennie, by this time a budding Boy Scout, was learning more lessons of
the sort that she had taught him.

Yes, she was weary, in every fibre of her being, as she sat down to
supper that night. She had it quite alone in the dining-room, which, all
at once, seemed very large--for the Superintendent was sitting,
somewhere, with a dying woman, and the Young Doctor had been called out
on an emergency case. And then, still alone, she wandered into the
library of the Settlement House and picked up a book. She felt, somehow,
too tired to sleep--too utterly exhausted to lay her head upon her
pillow. It was in the library that the Superintendent, coming wearily
back from the watch with death, found her.

"My dear," said the Superintendent, and there was a sound of tears in her
usually steady voice, "my dear, I'm about all in! Yes, I know it's slang,
but I can't help it--I feel slangy! Come up to my sitting-room for a few
minutes and we'll have a cup of hot chocolate!"

Rose-Marie laid down her book with alacrity. She realized, suddenly, that
she wanted companionship of her own sort--that she longed with all of her
soul to chat with some one who did not murder the queen's English, that
she wanted to exchange commonplaces about books, and music, and beautiful
things--things that the Volskys would not understand.

"I guess," she said, as she followed the Superintendent into the cozy
sitting-room, "I guess that tiredness is in the air to-day. I'm all in,
myself. A cup of chocolate and a friendly talk will be a godsend to me,
this evening!"

The Superintendent was laying aside her coat and her hat. She smoothed
her hair with a nerv