to have in exchange. I wouldn't mind
havin' it to keep jest to look at now and then and know it's mine. It'd
be somethin' to live for, jest to know you had that dress in the
house!"

Suddenly Betty, without any warning even to herself, dropped upon her
knees beside the diminutive bed and began to weep. It seemed somehow so
touching that a thing like a mere dress could make a girl glad like
that. All the troubles of the days that were past went over her in a
great wave of agony, and overwhelmed her soul. In soft silk and lace
petticoat and camisole with her pretty white arms and shoulders shaking
with great sobs she buried her face in the old patchwork quilt that her
hostess had brought from her village home, and gave way to a grief that
had been long in growing. The other girl now thoroughly alarmed, laid
the satin on a chair and went over to the little stranger, gathering her
up in a strong embrace, and gradually lifting her to the bed.

"You poor little Kid, you! I oughtta known better! You're just all in!
You ben gettin' ready to be married, and something big's been troubling
you, and I bet they never gave you any lunch--er else you wouldn't eat
it,--and you're jest natcheraly all in. Now you lie right here an' I'll
make you some supper. My name's Jane Carson, and I've got a good mother
out to Ohio, and a nice home if I'd had sense enough to stay in it; only
I got a chance to make big money in a fact'ry. But I know what 'tis to
be lonesome, an' I ain't hard-hearted, if I do know how to take care of
misself. There! There!"

She smoothed back the lovely hair that curled in golden tendrils where
the tears had wet it.

"Say, now, you needn't be afraid! Nobody'll getcha here! I know how to
bluff 'em. Even if a policeman should come after yeh, I'd get around him
somehow, and I don't care what you've done or ain't done, I'll stand by
yeh. I'm not one to turn against anybody in distress. My mother always
taught me that. After you've et a bite and had a cup of my nice tea with
cream and sugar in it you'll feel better, and we'll have a real
chin-fest and hear all about it. Now, you just shut your eyes and wait
till I make that tea."

Jane Carson thumped up the pillow scientifically to make as many of the
feathers as possible and shifted the little flower-head upon it. Then
she hurried to her small washstand and took a little iron contrivance
from the drawer, fastening it on the sickly gas-jet. She filled a tiny
kettle w