r machine this way and that; she
behaved like a hen hustled off her nest and not quite making up her
mind whether she would go back to it or not. Miss Bree's nose grew
apprehensive; it drew itself up with a little, visible, trembling
gasp,--her small eyes glanced timidly from under the drawn, puckered
lids, it was evidently all she could do to hold her ground. But Bel
had put her there, and loyalty to Bel kept her passive. It is so
much harder for some poor meek things ever to take anything, than it
is forever to go without. Only for love and gratefulness can they
ever be made to assume their common human rights.

Presently it had to come out.

Bel was singing away, as she gathered her work together in an
opposite quarter of the room, keeping a glance out at her right
eye-corner, expectantly.

"Who moved this machine?" asked Matilda Meane, stopping short in her
endeavors to make it take up the middle of the window without
absolutely rolling it over Aunt Blin's toes.

"I did, a little," answered Bel, promptly. "There was plenty of room
for two; and if there hadn't been, Aunt Blin must have a good light,
and have it over her left shoulder, at that. She's the oldest person
in the room, Miss Meane!"

"She was spoken to yesterday about her buttonholes," she added, in
a lower tone, to Eliza Mokey, as she settled herself in her own seat
next that young lady. "And it was all because she could hardly see."

"Buttonholes or not," answered Eliza, who preferred to be called
"Elise," "I'm glad somebody has taken Mat Meane down at last. She
needed it. I wish you could take her in hand everywhere. If _you_
boarded at our house"--

"I shouldn't," interrupted Bel, decisively. "Not under any
circumstances, from what you tell of it."

"That's all very well to say now; you're in clover, comparatively.
'Chaters' and real tea,--_and_ a three-ply carpet!"

Miss Mokey had gone home with Bel and Aunt Blin, one evening lately,
when there had been work to finish and they had made a "bee" of it.

"See if you could help yourself if you hadn't Aunt Blin."

"Why couldn't I help myself as well as she? She had a nice place all
alone, before I came."

"She must have half starved herself to keep it, then. Stands to
reason. Dollar and a quarter a day, and five dollars a week for your
room. Where's your muffins, and your Oolong? Or else, where's your
shoes?--Where's that Hamburg edging?"

"We don't have any Hamburg edging," said Bel, laugh