time-books and accounts, for to-morrow's pay-day. But of course, if you need me——"

"No, no. It has been very good of you to give us so much time. If I were only an agent, now, and had something to sell——"

"'Twouldn't be a bad scheme, Miss Lavillotte, in case you really want to see them as they are. If you had some new-fangled baking dish, or a story paper, or——"

Joyce looked up with a flashing glance, and turned to Ellen, who received the notice with a sniff and a restrained smile.

"You have one, Ellen. We bought it on the train, It's full of pictures and short stories."

"Yes 'm, I've got it. You left it on the seat and I picked it up."

"And now your frugality is to be rewarded. But wouldn't it be prying, Mr. Dalton?"

"Possibly. But wouldn't it be, anyway? I gather you have some good reason for wishing to see these people at home."

"I have. I want to know just how and where to help them best, but I hate to act in an underhanded way. And yet, if the paper would serve to give me entrance I'd try not to prevaricate in the least."

"I think you may be trusted, Miss Lavillotte."

"Ellen, will you stay here in the office while I try it alone?"

"If you tell me to I s'pose I must, but I think it's a wild-goose chase anyhow," was the disapproving answer. "I can tell you what you'll find well enough," sniffing disgustedly, "and that is babies, bad smells, dirt, and scolding. I've been there afore!"

Joyce laughed gaily.

"Give me the story paper, Ellen. I'm going to find all those things, surely, but more—much more, as you'll see in time," and, snatching the sheet from her maid's reluctant hand, she was off with a merry look back at the two, who watched her till she had rounded the corner of the great building and disappeared.

"It's a queer streak!" muttered Dalton, as he turned back into the little office room, which had never looked so dim and dingy before. "For a girl that's rich and handsome——"

"Don't see what there is so queer in being good!" returned Ellen belligerently. "Just 'cause she's got a heart and sense beyond her years folks calls her a freak. Of course it cuts, but she only laughs and goes on just the same's ever. I get so mad, sometimes, I'd like to stomp on 'em, but she just looks at me smiling brave-like, with her lips twitching a bit, and says, 'Never mind so long's we're surely right,' and then I can't say a word."

Dalton looked at her reflectively. He was not used to women, and it struck him, once or twice, that this elderly companion would have liked to dictate to her young mistress, had the latter allowed it. So, not feeling quite sure of his ground, he remarked vaguely,

"I suppose a girl like that would be naturally wilful—having everything heart could wish. But——"

"Well then, I'll let you know she isn't," snapped Miss Dover. "Wilful indeed!" and seating herself with resentful suddenness she glared at him till he was glad to bury himself in his books, and try to forget the excitements of the morning in figures.

CHAPTER V.

AMONG THE COTTAGES.

Joyce, laughing to herself, tripped across the ground occupied by the works, and, after a hurried glance along the first row of cottages, selected one at random and making straight for it, knocked with some trepidation, but no delay. She heard herself announced inside by a childish voice in descriptive fashion—"Say, ma, it's a girl in swell clothes—hurry!" and began to question if she were too well dressed, even in her plain black garb, for her part. Certainly there was an air about her not common to the traveling agency people, but whether it were entirely due to her garments may be doubted.

After considerable scurrying about inside, plainly distinguished through the thin planking, the door was gingerly opened a few inches and a touzled head appeared in the slit.

"Good-morning, 'm," spoke the head with an inquiring accent, which plainly meant, "And what do you want?"

Joyce partly ignored the woman and her brusquerie, for the pretty curly pate of a baby clinging to her skirts, and her ready smile was for him, as she said,

"What a bright-eyed baby! May I come in for a minute and talk to you?"

The mother thawed to that, and the door fell wide apart. "Why, yes, come in, come in! I'm washing to-day, but there's no great hurry's I knows on. Sit there, won't ye? It's more comfor'ble."

Quite willing to be "more comfor'ble," if at no one's expense, Joyce sank into the old cane rocker, still beaming upon the baby, who shyly courted her from amid the damp folds of his mother's skirts.

"He's pretty smart for 'leven months," affirmed the latter, lifting him to her knee, and dropping into the wooden chair opposite with a sense of utter relaxation that struck the caller as being the next thing to unconscious grace, even in that lank, slatternly figure. "He can go clear 'round the room by takin' hold o' things. I guess you like babies, 'm?"

"I like some babies—and yours is a beauty; large, too. I had thought him much older."

"Yes, he's as big as I care to lug—that's certain! Dorey, go and stir down the clo'es in the boilin' suds, and be quick about it, too! Don't ye know better'n to stand starin' at folks like a sick cat?" This, to a little girl, presumably the herald of Joyce's approach, who had been peeping in through the crack of a rear door.

Joyce, dreading a storm, asked politely,

"You have two children, have you?"

The woman laughed with something of a bitter cadence. "Oh yes, and seven more atop o' them. There's two between baby and Dorey, and five older. My three oldest is in the Works, and Rache is about the best hand they've got, if I do say it. Rache earns good wages, I tell ye—better'n the boys. But then, what with tobacco and beer, and beauin' the girls around to dances and shows, and all, you can't expect a fellow to have much left for his own folks. And my other two gals is workin' out in town. Dorey, stop jouncin' them hot clo'es up an' down in the suds! You'll git scalt with 'em yit."

"Do any of your children go to school?" asked the caller, quickly.

The woman laughed shortly.

"Where'd they go? There ain't no schools around here, and we ain't wanting any, either, since our time with that one last year. 'Twas a reg'lar sell! The gal what kep' it asked a nickel a week for every young 'un, and left us right in the middle of a term, 'cause she said it didn't pay. Stuck-up thing she was, too! Couldn't see nothin' lower'n the top of her own head, I couldn't abide her! No, if you're thinkin' of gettin' up any of them kinter-gardens you might as well give it up," eying Joyce suspiciously. "We don't want 'em."

"But would you object to a free public school?" asked Joyce with a patient air.

"Oh, I don't know's I should object," tolerantly. "Rache, she's a great hand to read, and she takes in a magerzine, too, but I never could see the sense o' spendin' time and money that way. If she marries she'll hev to come down to scrubbin' and cookin', and tendin' baby, same's her ma; and if she's an old maid, why, there's the Works, or goin' out to housework, and either way I don't see just where an eddication comes in."

"It might help her to some easier employment," suggested Joyce, but rather faintly, for the woman's airy loquacity disconcerted her.

"It might, an' then it mightn't. I've seen girls as got above their business come down a good deal lower than what they started from, and I say, let well enough alone. There's lots of born ladies that ain't no softer spoken than my girl Rache, and she's good to me and the young 'uns. I don't want anybody spoilin' my fam'ly by these highfalutin' notions."

The woman assumed a Cornelia expression that almost daunted poor Joyce, who was half a coward at heart, anyhow, so she meekly rose to go.

"I won't delay you from your washing any longer; good-by," she said,