"No, sir; that is just what it was counted at. They are all second-hand articles. There is the bedstead; we furnished the bed and bedding; my mother gave me that; Jeannette has no mother; and the table, and the other little pine table, the bureau, the wash-stand, the six chairs, the rocker, and the sofa; we made those ottomans, and the curtains; and in that pantry----. Oh, I declare how I am running on." "Pray, tell me, Miss----, I really have not learned your name yet." "Athalia. I am sure you heard your mother call me that." "Yes, but I was going to call you by your sirname." "Lovetree, sir. Athalia Lovetree." "Oh, that is a very sweet, pretty name." "Yes, sir, so much so that I think I shall always keep it." "So all the young ladies say. But it hardly ever proves true with one who owns so pretty a name, and a face prettier still." More flattery. She did not hear it. No. She felt it though. "Well, I am very sure I never shall change my first name. I never shall be called by any other than Athalia." She thought so then; I wonder if she ever thought of it in after years? "But you have not told me what is in that pantry." "Oh, no matter; that is where we keep all our dishes and cooking utensils. We have a stove in winter; in summer, a little charcoal furnace behind the fire-board." "And is your room warm in winter?" "Why yes, sir, if we have plenty of work." "Does work keep you warm?" "Oh, no; but work gives us money to buy coal. There was a time last winter, when we were out of work, that----" "You had no fire?" "Yes, sir, but only a few days, we had to make up the month's rent, eight dollars for the room, and five for the furniture." Walter put his hand in his pocket. What for? He felt how easy it would be to take out a hundred dollars, and tell her, to go and pay for that furniture, and not pay rent for it any longer. Then he thought how ridiculous, to be so affected by the woes and wants of a sewing girl. How his proud sisters would laugh at him. Pride conquered a heart prone to a good action. "And so you went without fire, to pay that usurious old miser who owns this furniture, sixty per cent per annum, for the use of it. Sixty, yes, more than a hundred upon what it would sell for at auction. And what did you do for food in the meantime?" "Well, we did not need much, and should not have suffered any, if Mrs. Jenkins had paid me for my work. Oh, if she only knew how much we did need it. Jeannette was sick, and what little money I had, I spent for her; I had almost ten dollars due me for work, and could not get one. It is wicked to keep poor girls out of their money; indeed it is, when they are sick and suffering for it." "And you suffered, while Mrs. Jenkins, with her thirteen servants, and coach and horses owed you for work?"