them by and by," she muttered, "and can manage them all the better
when I know as much as they do."

She saw, too, that the foreman had his eye upon her and her companions,
so she assumed the utmost humility and docility, but persisted in
being told and retold all she wished to know. Since she observed
that it was the foreman's eye and not good-will which constrained
the cold, unsympathetic instruction received, she made no scruple
in taxing the giver to the utmost.

When at last they went to the room in which they ate their lunch,
the girls treated her as if she were a leper; but just to spite them
she continued as serene as a May morning, either acting as if she
did not see them or treating them as if they were the most charming
young women she had ever met. She saw with delight that her course
aggravated them and yet gave no cause for complaint.

As soon as permitted she hastened home, and was glad to lie down all
the evening from sheer fatigue, but she made light of her weariness,
concealed the treatment she had received from the girls, and the
dejection it was beginning to occasion in spite of her courage;
she even made the little home group laugh by her droll accounts of
the day. Then they all petted and praised and made so much of her
that her spirits rose to their usual height, and she said confidently,
as she went to a long night's rest, "Don't you worry, little mother;
I didn't expect to get broken in to my work without a backache."

The next day it was just the same, but Belle knew now what to charge
for the ribbons, or, if she was not sure, the others were obliged,
under the eye of the inexorable foreman--who for some reason gave