The Superintendent was in.  She answered Rose-Marie’s knock with a cheery word, but, when the girl entered the room, she saw that the Superintendent’s kind eyes were troubled.

“What’s the matter?” she questioned, forgetting, for a moment, the business of which she had been so full.  “What’s the matter?  You look ever so worried!”

The Superintendent’s tired face broke into a smile.

“Was I looking as woe-begone as that?” she queried.  “I didn’t realize that I was.  Nothing serious is the matter, dear—­nothing very serious!  Only Katie’s sister in the old country is ill—­and Katie is going home to stay with her.  And it’s just about impossible to get a good maid, nowadays—­it seems as if Katie has been with me for a lifetime.  I expect that we’ll manage, somehow, but I don’t just fancy cooking and sweeping, and running the Settlement House, too!”

All at once an idea leaped, full-blown, into the brain of Rose-Marie.  She leaned forward and laid her hand upon the Superintendent’s arm.

“I wonder,” she asked excitedly, “if you’d consider a woman with a family to take Katie’s place?  The family isn’t large—­just a small boy who goes to school, and a small girl, and an older girl who is working.  There’s a grown son, but he can take care of himself...” the last she said almost under her breath.  “He can take care of himself.  It would be better, for them—­”

The Superintendent was eyeing Rose-Marie curiously.

“We have plenty of sleeping-rooms on the top floor,” she said slowly, “and I suppose that the older girl could help a bit, evenings.  Why, yes, perhaps a family might solve the problem—­it’s easier to keep a woman with children than one who is,” she laughed, “heart-whole and fancy free!  Who are they, dear, and how do you happen to know of them?”

Rose-Marie sat down, suddenly, in a chair beside the Superintendent’s desk.  All at once her knees were shaky—­all at once she felt strangely apprehensive.

“Once,” she began, and her voice quivered slightly, “I met a little boy, in the park.  He was hurting a kitten.  I started to scold him and then something made me question him, instead.  And I found out that he was hurting the kitten because he didn’t know any better—­think of it, because he didn’t know any better!  And so I was interested, ever so interested.  And I decided it was my duty to know something of him—­to find out what sort of an environment was responsible for him.”

The Superintendent’s tired face was alight She leaned forward to ask a question.

“How long ago,” she questioned, “did you meet this child, in the park?”

Rose-Marie flushed.  The time, suddenly, seemed very long to her.

“It was the day that I came home bringing a little gray cat with me,” she said.  “It was the day that I quarreled with Dr. Blanchard at the luncheon table.  Do you remember?”

The Superintendent smiled reminiscently.  “Ah, yes, I remember!” she said.  And then—­“Go on with the story, dear.”