heerfully, in the low tone she
always used in the library. "Want anything to read? You don't? What are
you reading, Martie?"

"I'm reading 'Idylls of the King,'" Sally said.

"I've got 'Only the Governess,'" added Grace.

"I didn't ask either of you," Miss Breck said with the brisk amused air
of correction that made the girls a little afraid of her. "It's Martie
here I'm interested in. I'm going to scold her, too. Are you reading
that book I gave you, Martie?"

Martie, as Grace and Sally turned away, raised smiling eyes. But at
Miss Fanny's keen, kindly look she was smitten with a sudden curious
inclination toward tears. She was keenly sensitive, and she felt an
undeserved rebuke.

"Don't like it?" asked the librarian, disposing of an interruption with
that casual ease that always fascinated Martie. To see Miss Fanny seize
four books from the hands that brought them into her range of vision,
flip open the four covers with terrific speed, manipulate various paper
slips and rubber stamps with energy and certainty, vigorously copy
certain mysterious letters and numbers, toss the discarded books into a
large basket at her elbow and then, for the first time, as she handed
the selected books to the applicant, glance up with her smile and
whispered "Good afternoon," was a real study in efficiency.

"I don't understand it," Martie smiled.

"Did you read it?" persisted the older woman.

"Well--not much." Martie had, in fact, hardly opened the book, an
excellent collection of some twenty essays for girls under the general
title "Choosing a Life Work."

"Listen. Why don't you study the Cutter system, and familiarize
yourself a little with this work, and come in here with me?" asked Miss
Fanny, in her firm, pushing voice.

"When?" Martie asked, considering.

"Well--I can't say when. I'm no oracle, my dear. But some day the grave
and reverend seigneurs on my Board may give me an assistant, I suppose."

"Oh--I know--" Martie was vague again. "What would I get?"

Miss Fanny's harsh cheeks and jaw stiffened, her eyes half closed, as
she bit her lip in thought.

"Fifteen, perhaps," she submitted.

Martie dallied with the pleasing thought of having fifteen dollars of
her own each month.

"But can't Miss Fanny make you feel as if you were back in school?" she
asked, when the girls were again in Main Street. "I'd just as lieves be
in the lib'ary as anywheres," she added.

"I'd rather be in the box factory," Grace said