“It was a great success.  So I went on, and when the journals were done, I used to read other things, and picked up books for their library, and helped in any way I could, while learning to know them better and give them confidence in me.  They are proud and shy, just as we should be but if you really want to be friends and don’t mind rebuffs now and then, they come to trust and like you, and there is so much to do for them one never need sit idle any more.  I won’t give names, as they don’t like it, nor tell how I tried to serve them, but it is very sweet and good for me to have found this work, and to know that each year I can do it better and better.  So I feel encouraged and am very glad I began, as I hope you all are.  Now, who comes next?”

As Anna ended, the needles dropped and ten soft hands gave her a hearty round of applause; for all felt that she had done well, and chosen a task especially fitted to her powers, as she had money, time, tact, and the winning manners that make friends everywhere.

Beaming with pleasure at their approval, but feeling that they made too much of her small success, Anna called the club to order by saying, “Ella looks as if she were anxious to tell her experiences, so perhaps we had better ask her to hold forth next.”

“Hear! hear!” cried the girls; and, nothing loath, Ella promptly began, with twinkling eyes and a demure smile, for her story ended romantically.

“If you are interested in shop-girls, Miss President and ladies, you will like to know that I am one, at least a silent partner and co-worker in a small fancy store at the West End.”

“No!” exclaimed the amazed club with one voice; and, satisfied with this sensational beginning Ella went on.

“I really am, and you have bought some of my fancy-work.  Isn’t that a good joke?  You needn’t stare so, for I actually made that needle-book, Anna, and my partner knit Lizzie’s new cloud.  This is the way it all happened.  I didn’t wish to waste any time, but one can’t rush into the street and collar shabby little girls, and say, ‘Come along and learn to sew,’ without a struggle, so I thought I’d go and ask Mrs. Brown how to begin.  Her branch of the Associated Charities is in Laurel Street, not far from our house, you know; and the very day after our last meeting I posted off to get my ‘chore.’  I expected to have to fit work for poor needlewomen, or go to see some dreadful sick creature, or wash dirty little Pats, and was bracing up my mind for whatever might come, as I toiled up the hill in a gale of wind.  Suddenly my hat flew off and went gayly skipping away, to the great delight of some black imps, who only grinned and cheered me on as I trotted after it with wild grabs and wrathful dodges.  I got it at last out of a puddle, and there I was in a nice mess.  The elastic was broken, feather wet, and the poor thing all mud and dirt.  I didn’t care much, as it was my old one,—­dressed