Anne opened her mouth and then shut it again.  She did not know what to say.  The blue-aproned girl caught sight of the trunk.

“Oh, you’re a new one!” she exclaimed.

She was so positive that Anne did not like to disagree with her.  “I—­I reckon I’m newer than I’m old,” she said politely.

The girl grinned.  “You come to stay, ain’t you?  That your trunk?”

“Yes,” stammered Anne.  “Mr. Patterson says—­there’s a lady here—­”

“You want to see Miss Farlow.  She’s the superintendent,” explained the girl, still grinning.  “Just you wait in the office till she comes from supper—­” and she opened a door on the right.  “My! didn’t that cabman leave a lot of mud on the steps?—­and tracks on the porch?  Mollie’ll have to scrub it again.  She’ll be so mad!”

The next day there was a new pair of overshoes on the rack, and instead of twenty-six, there were twenty-seven broad-brimmed, blue-ribboned hats.

After all, Anne was not unhappy in her new surroundings.  She missed cheery Miss Drayton and mischievous Pat, of course, but they seemed so far away from the sober life of the institution that she accepted without wonder the fact that she heard nothing from either of them.  The past year was like a dream.  Anne felt sometimes as if she had been at the ‘Home’ forever and forever.  She soon solved, to her own satisfaction and Honey-Sweet’s, the meaning of the name ‘Home for Girls.’  “It’s one of the words that means it isn’t the thing it says,” she explained.  “Like butterfly.  That isn’t a fly and it doesn’t make butter.  And ’Home for Girls’ means that it isn’t a home at all, but a schooly, outside-sort-of place.”

The girls lacked mothering, it is true, but they were governed kindly though strictly.  The simple fare was wholesome and the daily round of work, study, and exercise brought the children to it with healthy appetites.  It being vacation time, the schoolroom was closed.  But each girl had household tasks, which she was required to perform with accuracy, neatness, and despatch.

“The world is full of dawdlers and half-doers,” said Miss Farlow, wisely.  “Their ranks are crowded.  But there is always good work and good pay for those who have the habit of doing work well—­be it baking puddings or writing Greek grammars.  I want my girls to form the habit of well-doing.”

Anne always listened with respect to Miss Farlow.  She was one of the grown-ups that it seemed must always have been grown up.  You would have amazed Anne if you had told her that Miss Farlow was still young and, with her fresh color, good features, and soft, abundant hair, really ought to be pretty.  But there were anxious lines around the eyes and mouth, and the hair was always drawn straight back so as to show at its worst the high, knobby forehead.  Poor, patient, earnest, hard-working Miss Farlow!  She was brought face to face with much of the world’s need and longed to remove it all and was able to relieve so little.  She had at her disposal funds to support twenty homeless girls.  Because she could not bear to turn away one needing help, she was always saving and scrimping so as to take care of more.  One cannot wonder that she found life serious and solemn.  Yet if only she had known how to laugh and forget her work sometimes, she might have done more good as well as been happier herself.