and have your trunk sent?"

"This is all I've got," said Susan, indicating her bag on the table.

Into Mrs. Tucker's face came a look of terror that made Susan
realize in an instant how hard-pressed she must be. It was the
kind of look that comes into the eyes of the deer brought down
by the dogs when it sees the hunter coming up.

"But I've a good place," Susan hastened to say. "I get ten a week.
And as I told you before, when I can't pay I'll go right away."

"I've lost so much in bad debts," explained the landlady
humbly. "I don't seem to see which way to turn." Then she
brightened. "It'll all come out for the best. I work hard
and I try to do right by everybody."

"I'm sure it will," said Susan believingly.

Often her confidence in the moral ideals trained into her from
childhood had been sorely tried. But never had she permitted
herself more than a hasty, ashamed doubt that the only way to
get on was to work and to practice the Golden Rule. Everyone
who was prosperous attributed his prosperity to the steadfast
following of that way; as for those who were not prosperous,
they were either lazy or bad-hearted, or would have been even
worse off had they been less faithful to the creed that was
best policy as well as best for peace of mind and heart.

In trying to be as inexpensive to Spenser as she could
contrive, and also because of her passion for improving
herself, Susan had explored far into the almost unknown art of
living, on its shamefully neglected material side. She had
cultivated the habit of spending much time about her purchases
of every kind--had spent time intelligently in saving money
intelligently. She had gone from shop to shop, comparing
values and prices. She had studied quality in food and in
clothing, and thus she had discovered what enormous sums are
wasted through ignorance--wasted by poor even more lavishly
than by rich or well-to-do, because the shops where the poor
dealt had absolutely no check on their rapacity through the
occasional canny customer. She had learned the fundamental
truth of the material art of living; only when a good thing
happens to be cheap is a cheap thing good. Spenser,
cross-examining her as to how she passed the days, found out
about this education she was acquiring. It amused him. "A
waste of time!" he used to say. "Pay what they ask, and don't
bother your head with such petty matters." He might have
suspected and accused her of being sting