. Others fold the
sheets with an evenness and rapidity that only long practice can give;
others, again, stamp each sheet in the corner with a die; and still
others fold the reams--after they have been pressed together--into the
pretty, colored wrappers prepared for them, sealing them with wax, and
putting the packages, two together, into heavy brown papers, which are
closed with the label peculiar to the special brand of paper.

There was plenty of work for everybody, and there was, moreover, a
variety, and Katie felt very much elated at her promotion when she first
came into the gay, pleasant folding-room.

But the poor girl was destined to meet with a very bitter
disappointment. Perhaps the most severe trial of her life awaited her in
that pleasant room. She had only been there a few days when she became
aware that she was looked upon with suspicion. The superintendent
watched her closely, and carefully verified the accounts she gave of her
work. The girls with whom she tried to make acquaintance turned away,
and either answered her in monosyllables or else declined speaking at
all, and often when she came in suddenly before work had commenced two
or three who were mysteriously whispering together would suddenly stop
and look curiously and strangely at her. Once or twice she overheard
some disconnected words, of which the following are specimens: "What was
it really?"--"You don't say so!"--"Dishonesty!"--"I never should have
thought it!"--"Are you sure?"--"Bertie Sanderson!"--"She saw it
herself," etc. etc. Katie, having no key to these disjointed sentences,
could make nothing of them, but she felt that she was what school boys
call "sent to Coventry," and had not the least idea why.

The fact was that Bertie, whose jealous dislike was greatly increased by
Katie's promotion, while she herself remained in the rag-room, had
uttered her innuendoes to all who would listen to her, till it was
pretty generally understood throughout the mill that Katie Robertson was
a thief, who appeared in unbecoming finery bought with ill-gotten gains.
The rumor never took sufficient definiteness of shape to reach the girl
so that she could confute it and explain its origin. Of course, she was
not likely to tell any one in the mill about the finding of the
fifty-dollar bill and what had passed between Mr. James Mountjoy and
herself, since it was largely to her own credit, nor had he ever thought
of mentioning it, for a somewhat similar r