"'I sees you are idlin' with a strange young man,' I says. "Then she turns upon me quite angry like. 'You go on, and mind your own business. I ain't a-goin' to walk out with you no more.' "And then she laughed and he laughed, and I says, 'You mean to break our friendship, Ellen?' "And she nodded; and then I come on home with a broken 'eart. He be a stranger 'm, come to help Mr. Webster with his bay; and Ellen is on with him, and off with me. I couldn't have believed she would have laughed at me—I couldn't indeed; and all our years to come—hers and mine—are no good at all now. And she don't love me no more. I h'ain't got one friend in the whole big world, and, please 'm, I didn't think Ellen would have done it!" "Oh, well, Peggy, it isn't so bad. Cheer up! The young man will go away, and Ellen will come back to you." "Never 'm, never! I shouldn't arsk her to. I couldn't never trust her agen." "Well, Ellen is no great loss. There are other girls in the world quite as nice as she." [Illustration: "THEN I COME HOME WITH A BROKEN 'EART."] "But I were a-bringin' of her on so," sobbed Peggy. "I couldn't never make friends with no one else. She were a servant-maid just like me, and we had points in common, and we could talk our missuses over, and what we had for dinner, and the trouble the oving giv' us, and the cat and dogs, and the mice, oh! Please 'm, I couldn't find another Ellen, and she have broke my 'eart, she have!" Joyce could not comfort her, neither could Helen. She cried herself to sleep that night, and the perfidy of Ellen was a daily, hourly nightmare to her. "What's the good o' yer goin' on like this, Peggy?" she addressed herself passionately one lovely June day. "Better be like Albert Edward, and say nothin' to troubles that come to yer! He eats his food and sleeps, and don't make much o' disappointments. And nobody cares for your broken 'eart. The sun comes out just as fine, and the flowers keep on a-growin', and the summer don't turn to winter to soot your feelin's. You've been served shameful cruel, that you have, but just set yer mind to it that you has to walk along by yourself till you be growed-up. 'Tis wonderful what you can do if you sets your mind to it!" And by dint of "setting her mind to it," Peggy did show a Spartan-like cheeriness, but her happy smile seemed to have turned into a hard grin, and Joyce could not stand it. "Do, for goodness' sake, Peggy, keep from making such hideous faces!" she exclaimed. And Peggy hung her head at once. "Please 'm, I were only tryin' to be cheerful," she said. "I ain't a-goin' to cry no more." "I'm glad to hear it. Ellen isn't worth the fuss; but you need not try to wear a perpetual smile. It isn't natural." "No 'm, it ain't," said Peggy, with a sigh of relief. "It be my outside a-tryin' to smile, when my innards be still a-weepin'. But I'll do better soon 'm—I reely will!"