"I will try and tell you all. You ought to know. As far as work went, I did very well. I loved to handle and drape beautiful stuffs--I enjoy color--and it pleased me to fit the pretty girls and fine ladies who came to our show-rooms. It was even a satisfaction to make the plain ones look better. I should have made friends more easily with my companions but for the knowledge of what I was. Even this I might have got over--I am not naturally morbid--but I could not share their chatter and jests, or care for their love affairs. They were not bad, poor things! but simply ordinary girls of a class to which it would have been, perhaps, better for me to belong. With my employers I did fairly well. They were sometimes just, sometimes very unjust; but when I was out of my time, and receiving a salary, I found I was a valued _employee_. Then it came into my mind that I should like to found a business--a great business. It seemed rather a 'vaulting ambition' for so humble a waif as myself. But I began to save even shillings and sixpences. I tried to kill my heart with these duller, lower aims, it ached so always for what it could not find. I began to think I was growing so useful to madame that she might make me a partner; for even in millinery mental training is of use." She stopped, and clasping her hands, she rested them on her knee for a few moments of silence, while her brow contracted as if with pain. "It is dreadfully hard to go on!" she exclaimed at length, and her voice sounded as if her mouth were parched. "Then do not mind now; some other time," said Katherine, softly.