not to follow and make some stronger plea; but the next moment she
bent over her work again.

"I must hurry!" she said. "I'll see Lena after dinner, and try to
make her promise not to touch that bag. I don't see what has got
into her."

Mary worked away steadily. The rags were piled in an iron sieve
before her; they were mostly the kind called "Blue Egyptians,"
cotton cloth dyed with indigo, which had come far across the sea from
Egypt. Musty and fusty enough they were, and Mary often turned her
head aside as she sorted them carefully, putting the good rags into
a huge basket that stood beside her on the floor, while the bits of
woollen cloth, of paper and string and other refuse, went into
different compartments of the sorting-table, which was something
like an old-fashioned box-desk.

Mary was a quick worker, and her basket was already nearly full of
rags. Fastened upright beside her seat was a great knife, not unlike
a scythe-blade, with which she cut off the buttons and hooks and eyes,
running the garment along the keen edge with a quick and practised
hand. Usually she amused herself by imagining stories about the
buttons and their former owners, for she was a fanciful girl, and
her child-life, without brothers or sisters, had bred in her the
habit of solitary play and "make-believe," which clung to her now
that she was a tall girl of sixteen. But to-day she was not thinking
of the Blue Egyptians. Her thoughts were following Lena on her
homeward way, and she was hoping devoutly that her own words might
have had some effect, and that Lena might pass by the forbidden bag
without lingering to be further tempted. It _was_ strange that this