"I should like to help you," said the girl, "but I must find somewhere to stay before night, and if I find a place I must take it. I just came to the city this morning, and have nowhere to stay overnight."
The troubled look flitted across the woman's face for a moment, but her desire got the better of her.
"I suppose my husband would think I was crazy to do it," she said aloud, "but I just can't help trusting you. Suppose you come and stay with me to-day and to-morrow, and help me out with this dinner party, and you can stay overnight at my house and sleep in the cook's room. If I like your work, I'll give you a recommendation as waitress. You can't get a good place anywhere without it, not from the offices, I'm sure. A recommendation ought to be worth a couple of days' work to you. I'd pay you something besides, but I really can't afford it, for the washerwoman charges a dollar and a half a day when she goes out to cook; but if you get your board and lodging and a reference, that ought to pay you."
"You are very kind," said the girl. "I shall be glad to do that."
"When will you come? Can you go with me now, or have you got to go after your things?"
"I haven't any things but these," she said simply, "and perhaps you will not think I am fine enough for your dinner party. I have a little money. I could buy a white apron. My trunk is a good many miles away, and I was in desperate straits and had to leave it."
"H'm! A stepmother, probably," thought the kindly little woman. "Poor child! She doesn't look as if she was used to roughing it. If I could only hold on to her and train her, she might be a treasure, but there's no telling what John will say. I won't tell him anything about her, if I can help it, till the dinner is over."
Aloud she said: "Oh, that won't be necessary. I've got a white apron I'll lend you--perhaps I'll give it to you if you do your work well. Then we can fix up some kind of a waitress's cap out of a lace-edged handkerchief, and you'll look fine. I'd rather do that and have you come right along home with me, for everything is at sixes at sevens. Betty went off without washing the breakfast dishes. You can wash dishes, any way."