When she came to her old school-teacher’s—­Miss Mitchell’s—­house, she paused and hesitated a moment, then she went up the little path between the snow-banks to the front door, and rang the bell.  The door was opened before the echoes had died away.  Miss Mitchell had seen her coming, and hastened to open it.  Miss Mitchell had not been teaching school for some years, having retired on a small competency of her savings.  Her mortgage was paid, and there was enough for herself and her mother to live upon, with infinite care as to details of expenditure.  Every postage-stamp and car-fare had its important part in the school-teacher’s system of economy; but she was quite happy, and her large face wore an expression of perfect peace and placidity.

She was a woman who was not tortured by any strong, ungratified desires.  Her allotment of the gifts of the gods quite satisfied her.

When Ellen entered the rather stuffy sitting-room—­for Miss Mitchell and her mother were jealous of any breath of cold air after the scanty fire was kindled—­it was like entering into a stratum of peace.  It seemed quite removed from the turmoil of her own life.  The school-teacher’s old mother sat in her rocker close to the stove, stouter than ever, filling up her chair with those wandering curves and vague outlines which only the over-fleshy human form can assume.  She looked as indefinite as a quivering jelly until one reached her face.  That wore a fixedness of amiability which accentuated the whole like a high light.  She had not seen Ellen for a long time, and she greeted her with delight.

“Bless your heart!” said she, in her sweet, throaty, husky voice.  “Go and get her some of them cookies, Fanny, do.”  The old woman’s faculties were not in the least impaired, although she was very old, neither had her hands lost their cunning, for she still retained her skill in cookery, and prepared the simple meals for herself and daughter, seated in a high chair at the kitchen table to roll out pastry or the famous little cookies which Ellen remembered along with her childhood.

There was something about these cookies which Miss Mitchell presently brought to her in a pretty china plate, with a little, fine-fringed napkin, which was like a morsel of solace to the girl.  With the first sweet crumble of the cake on her plate, she wished to cry.  Sometimes the rush of old, kindly, tender associations will overcome one who is quite equal to the strain of present emergency.  But she did not cry; she ate her cookies, and confided to Miss Mitchell and her mother her desire to obtain a position elsewhere, since her factory-work had failed her.  It had occurred to her that possibly Miss Mitchell, who was on the school-board, might know of a vacancy in a primary school for the coming spring term, and that she might obtain it.

“I think I know enough to teach a primary school,” Ellen said.

“Of course you do, bless your heart,” said old Mrs. Mitchell.  “She knows enough to teach any kind of a school, don’t she, Fanny?  You get her a school, dear, right away.”