lks. Then he--died. I was eighteen, and I had six
hundred dollars. I couldn't do arithmetic, because Father had always
said it was left out of my head, and I needn't bother with it. So I
couldn't teach. Then they said, 'You like books, and you'd better be a
librarian.' As a matter of fact, a librarian never gets a chance to
read, but you can't explain that to the general public. So I came to the
city and took the course at library school. Then I got a position in the
Greenway Branch--two years in the circulating desk, four in the
cataloguing room, and one in the Children's Department. The short and
simple annals of the poor!"

"Go on," said Allan.

"I believe it's merely that you like the sound of the human voice," said
Phyllis, laughing. "I'm going to go on with the story of the Five Little
Pigs--you'll enjoy it just as much!"

"Exactly," said Allan. "Tell me what it was like in the library,
please."

"It was rather interesting," said Phyllis, yielding at once. "There are
so many different things to be done that you never feel any monotony, as
I suppose a teacher does. But the hours are not much shorter than a
department store's, and it's exacting, on-your-feet work all the time. I
liked the work with the children best. Only--you never have any time to
be anything but neat in a library, and you do get so tired of being just
neat, if you're a girl."

"And a pretty one," said Allan. "I don't suppose the ugly ones mind as
much."

It was the first thing he had said about her looks. Phyllis's ready
color came into her cheeks. So he thought she was pretty!

"Do you--think I'm pretty?" she asked breathlessly. She couldn't help
it.

"Of course I do, you little goose," said Allan, smiling at her.

Phyllis plunged back into the middle of her story:

"You see, you can't sit up nights to sew much, or practise doing your
hair new ways, because you need all your strength to get up when the
alarm-clock barks next morning. And then, there's always the
money-worry, if you have nothing but your salary. Of course, this last
year, when I've been getting fifty dollars a month, things have been all
right. But when it was only thirty a month in the Circulation--well,
that was pretty hard pulling," said Phyllis thoughtfully. "But the
worst--the worst, Allan, was waking up nights and wondering what would
happen if you broke down for a long time. Because you _can't_ very well
save for sickness-insurance on even fifty a month. And t