en us all!"

She had contrived to fasten her hair, and I saw her touching tentatively
the folds of her strange dress. And so I made her know what she had
done, as gently as I might, and with all praise I stilled her dismay and
shame. And last I led her, as I was determined that I would do, past
Miss Liddy's dark little house and on to the home of Doctor June.

I think that I would not have dared take Ellen, just as she was, in her
plaid skirt and her rosy nubia, into that black and brown
henrietta-cloth assembly, if I had remembered that there was to be a
stranger present. But this, in the events of the hour, I had quite
forgotten. I remembered as I entered the room and came face to face with
the Reverend Arthur Bliss, talking of the figures for the fiscal year.

"--and the deficit," he was saying, "ought to be made up by us who are
so well equipped to do it. With Paul, let us fight the good fight--of
every day. This is to-day's fight. Now let us talk over our various
weapons."

Doctor June looked thoughtfully at his young guest, and in the older
face was a brooding tenderness, like the tenderness of the father who
longs to hold the child in quiet, in his arms.

"Yes," said Doctor June, "'fighting' is one name for it. I am tempted to
say that 'drudgery' is another name. Errantry, ministry, service, or
whatever. It all comes to the same thing: 'What is that in thine hand?'
Well, now, who of us is first?"

"I think," said I then, "that Ellen Ember is first."

She would have shrunk back from the doorway to the passage, but I put my
arm about her, and then I told them. And when I had done, I remember how
she threw up that pathetic hand of hers, palm outward, and this time it
was over her eyes.

"I'm a disgrace to all of you!" she said, sobbing, "an' to the whole
Good Shepherd's Home. But I guess anyhow it's all the way I had. Seems
like I ain't got nothin' in the world but my craziness!"

There was silence for a moment, that rich silence which flowers in the
heart. And then great Mis' Amanda Toplady spoke out, in her deep voice
which now she some way contrived to keep firm.

"Well said!" she cried. "I come here to say I'd give a dollar outright
to get red o' the whole thing, rather'n to fuss. But now I ain't goin'
to stop at a dollar. Seems like a dollar for me wouldn't be _moral_. I'm
goin' to sell some strawberry plants--why, we got hundreds of 'em to
spare. I can do it by turnin' my hand over. An' I expec' the