"I had some boarders last summer," she explained, "and, when they went

away, they left these things and said I might put them into the

home-mission box. But I was sick when they sent it off this winter; and,

if you ain't a home mission, then I never saw one. You put 'em on. I guess

they'll fit. They may be a mite large, but she was about your size. I

guess your clothes are about wore out; so you jest leave 'em here fer the

next one, and use these. There's a couple of extra shirt-waists you can

put in a bundle for a change. I guess folks won't dare fool with you if

you have some clean, nice clothes on."

Elizabeth looked at her gratefully, and wrote her down in the list of

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saints with the woman who read the fourteenth chapter of John. The old

lady had neglected to mention that from her own meagre wardrobe she had

supplied some under-garments, which were not included in those the

boarders had left.

Bathed and clothed in clean, sweet garments, with a white shirt-waist and

a dark-blue serge skirt and coat, Elizabeth looked a different girl. She

surveyed herself in the little glass over the box-washstand and wondered.

All at once vanity was born within her, and an ambition to be always thus

clothed, with a horrible remembrance of the woman of the day before, who

had promised to show her how to earn some pretty clothes. It flashed

across her mind that pretty clothes might be a snare. Perhaps they had

been to those girls she had seen in that house.

With much good advice and kindly blessings from the old lady, Elizabeth

fared forth upon her journey once more, sadly wise in the wisdom of the

world, and less sweetly credulous than she had been, but better fitted to

fight her way.

The story of her journey from Chicago to Philadelphia would fill a volume

if it were written, but it might pall upon the reader from the very

variety of its experiences. It was made slowly and painfully, with many

haltings and much lessening of the scanty store of money that had seemed

so much when she received it in the wilderness. The horse went lame, and

had to be watched over and petted, and finally, by the advice of a kindly

farmer, taken to a veterinary surgeon, who doctored him for a week before

he finally said it was safe to let him hobble on again. After that the

girl was more careful of the horse. If he should die, what would she do?

One dismal morning, late in November, Elizabeth, wearing the old overcoat

to keep her from freezing, rode into Philadelphia.

Armed with instructions from the old lady in Chicago, she rode boldly up

to a policeman, and showed him the address of the grandmother to whom she

had decided to go first, her mother's mother. He sent her on in the right

direction, and in due time with the help of other policemen she reached

the right number on Flora Street.




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