o
work--to make an honest living--to be independent and self-reliant?"

He picked up his bag of samples and she saw that his hands had become
hard and sunburnt from the plow handles.

"Helen," he went on earnestly, "that is one of the hide-bound
tyrannies that must be banished from our Southland--banished as that
other tyranny, slavery, has been banished--a sin, which, with no
fault of our own, we inherited from the centuries. We shall never be
truly great--as God intended we should be great--until we learn to
work. We have the noblest and sunniest of lands, with more resources
than man now dreams of, a greater future than we know of if we will
only work--work and develop them. You have set an example for every
girl in the South who has been thrown upon her own resources. Never
before in my life have I cared--so--much--for you."

And he blushed as he said it, and fumbled his samples.

"Then you do care some for me?" she asked pleadingly. She was
heart-sick for sympathy and did not know just what she said.

He flushed and started to speak. He looked at her, and his big
glasses quivered with the suppressed emotions which lay behind them
in his eyes.

But he saw that she did not love him, that she was begging for
sympathy and not for love. Besides, what right had he to plan to
bring another to share his poverty?

He mounted his horse as one afraid to trust himself to stay longer.
But he touched her hair in his awkward, funny way, before he swung
himself into the saddle, and Helen, as she went into the desolate
home, felt uplifted as never before.

Never before had she seen work in that light--nor love.

CHAPTER IV

MAGGIE

It was Maggie's last day at the mill, and she had been unusually
thoughtful. Her face was more pinched, Helen thought, and the sadness
in her eyes had increased.

Helen had proved to be an apt pupil, and Maggie declared that
thereafter she would be able to run her machine without assistance.

It was Saturday noon and Maggie was ready to go, though the mill did
not shut down until six that day. And so she found herself standing
and looking with tearful eyes at the machine she had learned to love,
at the little room in which she had worked so long, supporting her
invalid father and her little ones--as she motherly called the
children. It had been hard--so hard, and the years had been long and
she was so weak now, compared to what she had been. How happy she had
thought the moment