s_ of use. There _isn't_ any difference,
really. We are both girls who have to earn our living. Our training has
been different, that is all. I want to know all you know; I want you to
know all I do. I want to be friends; oh, I want to be friends with every
girl in the world!"

"Pshaw! do you? Well, I don't. I don't want but a few, and I want them
to be stylish and nice. You'd have a lot of style if you could dress
different."

Poor Amy. This was like a dash of cold water over her enthusiasm. Just
when she fancied that Gwendolyn was aspiring to all that was noble and
uplifting, down she had dropped again into that idea of "style" and
fashion and good times. But she remembered Mary. In the soul of that
afflicted little mill girl was, indeed, a true ambition, and she felt
glad again, from thoughts of her.

"Hallam, how can you climb all the way to 'Charity House'? You will
drop by the way. It's hard, even for me."

"I can do it. I must. There is nothing else to be done."

So they set out together, through the darkness. The days were at the
shortest, and Christmas would come the following week. Hallam and Amy
looked forward with dread to the festival, remembering their mother had
striven, even under disadvantages, to keep the holiday a bright one for
her children. There had never been either many or costly gifts at
Fairacres, but there had been something for each and all; and the
home-made trifles were all the dearer because Salome's gentle fingers
had fashioned them.

Now Gwendolyn was full of anticipation, and from her talk about it her
neighbors judged she meant to expend a really large sum of money in
presents for her friends.

"But, Gwendolyn, how can you buy all these things? You told me you
earned about five dollars a week, and you've bought so many clothes;
and--I guess I'm not good at figures. My poor little two dollars and a
half, that I get now, wouldn't buy a quarter of all you say."

"Oh, that's all right. Mis' Hackett, she charges it. I always run an
account with her."

"You? a girl like you? What is your mother thinking about? I thought to
buy a wheel that way was queer; but how dare you?"

"Why, I'm working all the time, ain't I? Anybody that has regular work
can get anything they want at Mis' Hackett's, or other places, too. Ma
and pa do the same way."

"But--that's _debt_. It must be horrible. It seems like going out of one
debt into another as fast as you can. Oh, Gwen, don't do it."

"Ps