from the grocer and the butcher's boy, and who goes
by and what they has on. Not that I don't admire bein' sociable, and I
can't help havin' a motherly feelin' for one old enough to be my
mother; but I don't get no chance to redd up nowhere except the
dinin'-room and his study. And then you know, I ain't no general
housework girl, anyways, I've always cooked before; but here I have to
do everything, besides waitin' on a woman as isn't any sicker than what
I be. If you knew the money she spends on choc'late creams and
headache powders and the trashy novels she reads, you'd wonder she
ain't even yellower than what she is."

The next morning Elsie set about trying to do her own room. Before she
had reached the point of attacking the bed, she had decided that she
could save herself a great deal of work by putting things away when she
took them off or used them, instead of dropping them, as she had always
done, for some one else to pick up. Kate came in and insisted upon
helping with the bed.

"But, Katy, don't you want to get ready for church?" Elsie suddenly
thought to inquire.

"I went to early mass this mornin', miss. I declare to goodness, I'm
that shabby that I don't like to appear out in broad daylight."

"Why, Katy, what do you do with all your money? Do you have parents to
support?"

"No'm, I'm an orphan. But I don't have any ready money, and I don't
like to take what little I have out of the savings-bank. I ain't been
paid my wages sence Christmas."

Elsie was aghast. "But why don't you ask for them?" she cried.

"I do. And she keeps a-promisin', but money slips right through her
fingers. I don't like to go to himself about it, because I hate to
upset him, and then she's good to me, and I know them headache powders
makes her forgetful. I don't know where the money goes: she has a
fistful the first of every month, but she owes bills to everybody in
town except the undertaker. What I'm afraid of is as some of 'em'll go
to himself. The ice man is gettin' as sassy as he can live."

Elsie was shocked beyond expression. The situation would have seemed
inconceivable except that anything was conceivable in connection with
Mrs. Middleton. The girl had almost forgotten that she was departing
shortly, but realizing it, she was the more relieved. Only it would be
all the harder for Elsie Moss.

Still, even so, she found she couldn't dismiss the matter thus.
Somehow her heart went out to that carele