er.

"'Tisn't the potatoes we're after asking, sir," said Ellen. She was
always spokeswoman, for Mike had an impediment in his speech. "The
childher come up yisterday and got them while you'd be down at the
counting-room. 'Twas Mary Moynahan saw to them. We do be very thankful
to you, sir, for your kindness."

"Come in," said the agent, seeing there was something of consequence
to be said. Ellen Carroll and he had worked side by side many a long
day when they were young. She had been a noble wife to Mike, whose
poor fortunes she had gladly shared for sake of his good heart, though
Mike now and then paid too much respect to his often infirmities.
There was a slight flavor of whisky now on the evening air, but it was
a serious thing to put on your Sunday coat and go up with your wife to
see the agent.

"We've come wanting to talk about any chances there might be with the
mill," ventured Ellen timidly, as she stood in the lighted room; then
she looked at Mike for reassurance. "We're very bad off, you see," she
went on. "Yes, sir, I got them potaties, but I had to bake a little of
them for supper and more again the day, for our breakfast. I don't
know whatever we'll do whin they're gone. The poor children does be
entreating me for them, Dan!"

The mother's eyes were full of tears. It was very seldom now that
anybody called the agent by his Christian name; there was a natural
reserve and dignity about him, and there had come a definite
separation between him and most of his old friends in the two years
while he had managed to go to the School of Technology in Boston.

"Why didn't you let me know it was bad as that?" he asked. "I don't
mean that anybody here should suffer while I've got a cent."

"The folks don't like to be begging, sir," said Ellen sorrowfully,
"but there's lots of them does be in trouble. They'd ought to go away
when the mills shut down, but for nobody knows where to go. Farley
ain't like them big towns where a man'd pick up something else to do.
I says to Mike: 'Come, Mike, let's go up after dark and tark to Dan;
he'll help us out if he can,' says I--"

"Sit down, Ellen," said the agent kindly, as the poor woman began to
cry. He made her take the armchair which the weave-room girls had
given him at Christmas two years before. She sat there covering her
face with her hands, and trying to keep back her sobs and go quietly
on with what she had to say. Mike was sitting across the room with his
back to