“You could not get along at all.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I could.  Some way would be provided for me,” was the confident reply.

I looked into the poor woman’s face with wonder and admiration.  So patient, so trustful, and yet so very poor.  The expression of her countenance was beautiful in its calm religious hope, and it struck me more than ever as familiar.

“Did I ever see you before, Mrs. Partridge?” I asked.

“Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know.  I am sure I have seen you somewhere.  No, now I recollect; it is your likeness to a young schoolmate that makes your face so familiar.  How much you do favour her, now I look at you more closely.”

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Her name was Flora S——.”

“Indeed!  Why, that was my name!”

“Your name!  Did you go to Madame Martier’s school?”

“I did.”

“And can you indeed be my old schoolmate, Flora S——?”

“My maiden name was Flora S——­, and I went to Madame Martier’s.  Your face is also familiar, but how to place you I do not know.”

“Don’t you remember Helen Sprague?”

“Helen Sprague!  This can’t be Helen Sprague, surely!  Yes!  I remember now.  Why, Helen?” and I stepped forward and grasped her hand.  “I am both glad and sorry to see you.  To think that, after the lapse of fifteen years, we should meet thus!  How in the world is it that fortune has been so unkind to you?  I remember hearing it said that you had married very well.”

“I certainly never had cause to regret my marriage,” replied Mrs. Partridge, with more feeling than she had yet shown.  “While my husband lived I had every external blessing that I could ask.  But, just before he died, somehow or other he got behind-hand in his business, and after his death, there being no one to see to things, what he left was seized upon and sold, leaving me friendless and almost penniless.  Since then, the effort to get food and clothes for my children has been so constant and earnest, that I have scarcely had time to sit down and grieve over my losses and sufferings.  It is one perpetual struggle for life.  And yet, though I cannot now keep the tears from my eyes, I will not say that I am unhappy.  Thus far, all things necessary for me have come.  I yet have my little flock together, and a place that bears the sacred name of home.”

I looked into Helen’s face, over which tears were falling, and wondered if I were not dreaming.  At school she had been the favourite of all, she was so full of good humour, and had such a cheerful, peace-loving spirit.  Her parents were poor, but respectable people, who died when Helen was fifteen years old.  She was then taken from school, and I never saw her afterward until she came to my house in the capacity of a washerwoman, hundreds of miles away from the scenes of our early years.

“But can’t you find easier work than washing?” I asked.  “Are you not handy with your needle?”