"Don't, Lena! please don't! you will be sorry, I am sure, if you do
it. It cannot bring good, I know it cannot!"

"The idea! Mary Denison, you are too old-fashioned for anything. I'd
like to know what harm it can do."

The rag-room was nearly deserted. The whistle had blown, and most of
the girls had hurried away to their dinner. Two only lingered behind,
deep in conversation; Mary Denison and Lena Laxen.

Mary was sitting by her sorting-table, busily sorting rags as she
talked. She was a fair, slender girl, and looked wonderfully fresh
and trim in her gray print gown, with a cap of the same material
fitting close to her head, and hiding her pretty hair. The other
girl was dark and vivacious, with laughing black eyes and a careless
mouth. She was picturesque enough in her blue dress, with the
scarlet handkerchief tied loosely over her hair; but both kerchief
and dress showed the dust plainly, and the dark locks that escaped
here and there were dusty too, showing little of the care that may
keep one neat even in a rag-room.

"It's just as pretty as it can be!" Lena went on, half-coaxing,
half-defiant. "You ought to see it, Mame! A silk waist, every bit as
good as new, only of course it's mussed up, lying in the bag; and a
skirt, and lots of other things, all as nice as nice! I can't think
what the folks that had them meant, putting such things into the rags:
why, that waist hadn't much more than come out of the shop, you
might say. And do you think I'm going to let it go through the duster,
and then be thrown out, and somebody else get it? No, sir! and it's
no good for rags, you know it isn't, Mary Denison."