f Mrs. Bond, a small
woman with a pleasant but firm face, and such an air of energy that no
lazy person could exist comfortably in her presence.

She was never known to waste any time. With the assistance of a colored
boy,--a theological student,--who came in twice a day and in the time he
could spare from his Latin and Greek cleaned for her, she kept Mr.
Clark's rooms and the halls in beautiful order. Her children were always
as neat as wax, and her busy fingers found time for a little fine sewing
occasionally, which, as a girl, she had learned in the convent school
where she was educated.

Mrs. Bond was trying to train her daughter in the same industrious ways,
and one Saturday morning Frances discovered Emma dusting the show-cases
in the shop. Stopping to speak to her, she learned that this was her
daily task, and that on Saturdays she dusted the study also. It must be
very interesting work, Frances thought, and the two children found so
much to talk about that Mrs. Bond presently came in search of Emma and
reproved her for idling. She did not positively object to play after
lessons were learned and other duties attended to, but she conveyed the
impression to Frances that in her opinion a really exemplary little girl
would care more for her tasks than for amusement.

"I am so sorry, but I have to go," Emma whispered, as her mother left
the room.

"Won't your mother let you come to see me some time?" Frances asked.

"I guess so, when I haven't anything to do," answered Emma, who thought
Frances the most charming little girl she had ever seen.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

AN INFORMAL AFFAIR.

It was not long before the Morrisons' apartment blossomed into a
charmingly homelike place. Even Mrs. Bond, who on one of her tours of
inspection in the wake of Wilson Barnes, the student, had been enticed
in for a moment, agreed that the rooms were very fine, though she
herself would not care to have so many things to keep clean.

Their sitting room was the greatest achievement. There was the new rug,
which really was a beauty, and the couch, with its plump cushions all
covered in a marvellous fifteen-cent stuff that looked like a costly
Oriental fabric, together with the books and pictures, which had been
left packed and ready to be sent to them whenever they should settle
down, and last of all, in the sunniest corner was a beautiful sword
fern, a rubber plant, and a jar of ivy.

"Transients can't afford many plants, but