Too much confused to remember anything distinctly, Adah forgot Jim's injunction; forgot that Pamelia was to arrange it somehow; forgot everything, except that Mrs.Richards was waiting for her to speak.

An ominous cough from Eudora decided her, and then it came out, her reason for being there.

She had seen Miss Anna's advertisement, she wanted a place, and she had come so far to get it; had left a happy home that she might not be dependent but earn, her bread for herself and her little boy, for Willie.

Would they take her message to Anna?
Would they let her stay?
"You say you left a happy home," and the thin, sneering lips of Eudora were pressed so tightly together that the words could scarcely find egress.

"May I ask, if it was so happy, why you left it ?" There was a flush on Adah's cheek as she replied, "Because it was a home granted at first from charity.