more study for me," mused Rose, and she felt both glad and sorry.
"What will Bessy say? She won't like it. I wonder what old Hill did to
her. Let her off easy. I won't get to see Bessy so much now. No more
afternoons in the park. But I'll have the evenings. Best of all, some
nice clothes to wear. I might some day have a lovely gown like that
Miss Maynard wore the night of the Prom."

Rose washed and dried the dishes, put them away, and cleaned up the
little kitchen in a way that spoke well for her. And she did it
cheerfully, for in the interest of this new idea of work she forgot
her trouble and discontent. Taking up the lamp she went to her room.
It contained a narrow bed, a bureau, a small wardrobe and a rug. The
walls held several pictures, and some touches of color in the way of
ribbons, bright posters, and an orange-and-blue banner. A photograph
of Bessy Bell stood on the bureau and the girl's beauty seemed like a
light in the dingy room.

Rose looked in the mirror and smiled and tossed her curly head. She
studied the oval face framed in its mass of curls, the steady
gray-blue eyes, the soft, wistful, tenderly curved lips. "Yes, I'm
pretty," she said. "And I'm going to buy nice things to wear."

Suddenly she heard a pattering on the roof.

"Rain! What do you know about that? I've got to stay in. If I spoil
that relic of a hat I'll never have the nerve to go ask for a job."

She prepared for bed, and placing the lamp on the edge of the bureau,
she lay down to become absorbed in a paper-backed novel. The
mill-clock was striking ten when she finished. There was a dreamy
light in her eyes and a glow upon her face.

"How grand to be as beautiful as she was and turn out to be an heiress
with blue blood, and a lovely mother, and handsome lovers dying for
her!"

Then she flung the novel against the wall.

"It's only a book. It's not true."

Rose blew out the lamp and went to sleep.

During the night she dreamed that the principal of the High School had
called to see her father, and she awoke trembling.

The room was dark as pitch; the rain pattered on the roof; the wind
moaned softly under the eaves. A rat somewhere in the wall made a
creaking noise. Rose hated to awaken in the middle of the night. She
listened for her father's breathing, and failing to hear it, knew he
had not yet come home. Often she was left alone until dawn. She tried
bravely to go to sleep again but found it impossible; she lay there
lis