ut disgrace! It was a disgrace for a girl to be seen with the likes
of him, let alone to be married to him. But that poor Lena, she never
did know how to show herself off for what she was really. Disgrace to
have him go away and leave her. Mary would just like to get a chance
to show him. If Lena wasn't worth fifteen like Herman Kreder, Mary
would just eat her own head all up. It was a good riddance Lena had of
that Herman Kreder and his stingy, dirty parents, and if Lena didn't
stop crying about it,--Mary would just naturally despise her.

Poor Lena, she knew very well how Mary meant it all, this she was
always saying to her. But Lena was very miserable inside her. She felt
the disgrace it was for a decent german girl that a man should go away
and leave her. Lena knew very well that her aunt was right when she
said the way Herman had acted to her was a disgrace to everyone that
knew her. Mary and Nellie and the other girls she always sat with were
always very good to Lena but that did not make her trouble any better.
It was a disgrace the way Lena had been left, to any decent family,
and that could never be made any different to her.

And so the slow days wore on, and Lena never saw her Aunt Mathilda. At
last on Sunday she got word by a boy to go and see her aunt Mathilda.
Lena's heart beat quick for she was very nervous now with all this
that had happened to her. She went just as quickly as she could to see
her Aunt Mathilda.

Mrs. Haydon quick, as soon as she saw Lena, began to scold her for
keeping her aunt waiting so long for her, and for not coming in all
the week to see her, to see if her aunt should need her, and so her
aunt had to send a boy to tell her. But it was easy, even for Lena,
to see that her aunt was not really angry with her. It wasn't Lena's
fault, went on Mrs. Haydon, that everything was going to happen all
right for her. Mrs. Haydon was very tired taking all this trouble
for her, and when Lena couldn't even take trouble to come and see
her aunt, to see if she needed anything to tell her. But Mrs. Haydon
really never minded things like that when she could do things for
anybody. She was tired now, all the trouble she had been taking to
make things right for Lena, but perhaps now Lena heard it she would
learn a little to be thankful to her. "You get all ready to be married
Tuesday, Lena, you hear me," said Mrs. Haydon to her. "You come here
Tuesday morning and I have everything all ready for you. Y