s. "You mustn't get
reckless!"

"What real difference does it make to you or anybody else how I get?"
she demanded fiercely, and added: "You are showing me how much when you
advertise to all the town by turning me out that you believe their evil
tongues."

"I'm goin' to talk to Hank again----" but Essie stopped her with a
vehement gesture.

"You needn't. I don't want pity, I tell you, I don't want favors. I am
going to-morrow. There is some way out. There is a place in the world
for me somewhere and I'll find it."

She turned away and walked toward the corral where the black omnibus
horses nickered softly at her coming, while Alphonse and Gaston stood on
their hind legs and squealed a vociferous welcome.

"My only friends----" and she smiled bitterly.

She winced when she saw a new face passing the kitchen door and realized
that Mr. Terriberry already had filled her place. It was only one small
thing more, but it brought again the feeling that the world was sinking
beneath her feet.

She stood for a long time with her forehead resting on her folded arms
which lay upon the top rail of the corral. The big 'bus horses shoved
her gently with their soft muzzles, impatient to be noticed, but she did
not lift her head until a step upon the hard-trodden yard roused her
from her apathy of dull misery. She glanced around indifferently to see
old Edouard Dubois lumbering toward her in the fast gathering dusk.

Dubois's self-conscious, ingratiating smile did not fade because she
drew her arched eyebrows together in a slight frown. It took more than
an unwelcoming face to divert the obstinate old Frenchman from any
purpose firmly fixed in his mind.

"Ha--I am ver' glad to find you alone, Mees Teesdale, I lak have leetle
talk with you." There was a purposeful look behind his set smile of
agreeableness.

She shrank from him a little as he came close to her, but he appeared
not to notice the movement, and went on--

"I hear you are in trouble--eh? I hear you get fire from ze hotel?"

Again the girl's face took on its new look of bitterness. That was the
way in which they were expressing it, spreading the news throughout the
town. They were losing no time--her friends.

"'Fired' is the word when a biscuit-shooter is dismissed," she returned
coldly.

"I hear you get lef' by that loafer, too. I tole you, mam'selle, that
fellow Van Lennop no good. I know that kind, I see that kind before,
Mees Teesdale. Lak every pretty