knows you. I have heard so much about you, but I never dreamed that
you'd ever speak to me."

"Nonsense," replied Grace, laughing. "I'm just a girl like yourself.
There isn't anything remarkable about me. I'm very glad to know you,
Miss Allison, but I am sorry to find you so unhappy. Can't you tell me
about it?" she coaxed, sitting down on the bench and slipping one arm
around the shabby little figure.

Mabel's lip quivered again. Then she turned impulsively toward Grace and
said: "Yes; I will tell you, although no one can help me. I suppose you
don't know where I live or anything about me, do you?"

"No," replied Grace, shaking her head, "but I'd be glad to have you tell
me."

"Well," continued Mabel, "I'm an orphan, and I live with Miss Brant.
She----"

"Not that horrible, miserly Miss Brant who lives in that ugly yellow
house on Elm Street?" interrupted Grace in a horrified tone.

"Yes, she is the one I mean," continued Mabel. "She took me from an
orphan asylum two years ago. I hated her the first time I ever saw her,
but the matron said I was old enough to work, that I'd have a good home
with her and that I should be paid for my work. She promised to send me
to school, and I was wild to get a good education, so I went with her.
But she is perfectly awful, and I wish I were dead."

Her voice ended almost in a wail.

"I don't blame you," said Grace sympathetically. "She has the reputation
of being one of the most hateful women in Oakdale. I am surprised that
she even allows you to go to school."

"That's just the trouble," the girl replied, her voice husky. "She's
going to take me out of school. I shall be sixteen next month, and
exempt from the school law. So she is going to make me stop school and
go to work in the silk mill. I worked there all through vacation last
summer, and she took every cent of my wages. She took my freshman prize
money, too."

"What a burning shame!" exclaimed Grace indignantly. "Haven't you any
relatives at all, Miss Allison, or any one else with whom you could
stay?"

Mabel shook her head.

"I don't know anything about myself," she said. "I was picked up on the
street in New York City when I was three years old, and as no one
claimed me, I was put in an orphanage. There was one woman at the
orphanage who was always good to me. She remembered the day they brought
me, and she said that I was beautifully dressed. She always believed
that I had been stolen. She said that I could