telling, and for a while she forgot herself and her sorrow.

It is so always. When we would weep we have only to look around and
see others who would wail.

"When I come I was as rosy as you," Maggie went on; "not so pretty
now, mind you--nobody could be as pretty as you."

She said it simply, but it touched Helen.

"But I'll get my color back on the little farm--I'll be well again."
She was silent a while. "I kno' you are wonderin' how I saved and got
it." Helen saw her face sparkle and the spots deepen. "Mr. Travis
has been so kind to me in--in other ways--but that's a big secret,"
she laughed, "I'm to tell you some day, or rather you'll see yo'self,
an' then, oh--every thing will be all right an' I'll be ever so much
happier than I am now."

She jumped up impulsively and stood before Helen.

"Mightn't I kiss you once,--you're so pretty an' fresh?" And she
kissed the pretty girl half timidly on the cheek.

"It makes me so happy to think of it," she went on excitedly, "to
think of owning a little farm all by ourselves, to go out into the
air every day whenever you feel like it and not have to work in the
mill, nor ask anybody if you may, but jus' go out an' see things
grow--an' hear the birds sing and set under the pretty green trees
an' gather wild flowers if you want to. To keep house an' to clean up
an' cook instead of forever drawin'-in, an' to have a real flower
garden of yo' own--yo' very own."

They worked for hours, Maggie talking as a child who had found at
last a sympathetic listener. Twilight came and then a clang of bells
and the shaft above them began to turn slower and slower. Helen
looked up wondering why it had all stopped so suddenly. She met the
eyes of Travis looking at her.

"I am to take you home," he said to her, "the trotters are at the
door. Oh," as he looked at her work--"why, you have done first rate
for the day."

"It's Maggie's," she whispered.

He had not seen Maggie and he stood looking at Helen with such
passionate, patronizing, commanding, masterful eyes, that she shrank
for a moment, sideways.

Then he laughed: "How beautiful you are! There are queens born and
queens made--I shall call you the queen of the mill, eh?"

He reached out and tried to take her hand, but she shrank behind the
machine and then--

"Oh, Maggie!" she exclaimed--for the girl's face was now white and
she stood with a strained mouth as if ready to sob.

"Oh, Maggie's a good little girl," said Tr