She could not go out and face it all over again. It was so bleak--so

bleak. There seemed to be no place in the great world that she could

fill, no one stood in need of her help, no one required her services.

They had no faith in her story that she was looking for work and had no

home.

"What, a good-looking young girl like you! What, no home? No, no; we

don't need you," or the other frightful alternative.

And yet she must go. Sanderson was right. She could not stay where he

was. She must go. But where?

She could hear his voice in the dining-room, entertaining them all with

his inimitable gift of story-telling. And then, their laughter--peal

on peal of it--and his voice cutting in, with its well-bred modulation:

"Yes, I thought it was a pretty good story myself, even if the joke was

on me." And again their laughter and applause. She had no weapons

with which to fight such cold-blooded selfishness. To stay meant

eternal torture. She saw herself forced to face his complacent sneer

day after day and death on the roadside seemed preferable.

She tried to face the situation in all its pitiful reality, but the

injustice of it cried out for vengeance and she could not think. She

could only bury her throbbing temples in her hands and murmur over and

over again: "It is all wrong."

David found her thus, as he made his way to the house from the barn,

where he had been detained later than the others. When he saw her

forlorn little figure huddled by the well-curb in an attitude of

absolute dejection, he could not go on without saying some word of

comfort.

"Miss Anna," he said very gently, "I hope you are not going to be

homesick with us."

She lifted a pale, tear-stained face, on which the lines of suffering

were written far in advance of her years.

"It does not matter, Mr. David," she answered him, "I am going away."

"No, no, you are not going to do anything of the kind," he said gently;

"the work seems hard today because it is new, but in a day or two you

will become accustomed to it, and to us. We may seem a bit hard and

unsympathetic; I can see you are not used to our ways of living, and

looking at things, but we are sincere, and we want you to stay with us;

indeed, we do."

She gave him a wealth of gratitude from her beautiful brown eyes. "It

is not that I find the place hard, Mr. David. Every one has been so

kind to me that I would be glad to stay, but--but----"




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