"How good you are to me, a perfect stranger!" murmured Bernardine. "I will be glad to pay you for the tea and----" The lady held up her white hand with a slow gesture. "We do not take pay for any services we render here, my dear," she said. "This is a young girls' temporary shelter, kept up by a few of the very wealthy women in this great city." Bernardine was very much surprised to hear this; but before she could reply, the lady threw open a door to the right, and Bernardine was ushered into a plain but scrupulously neat apartment in which sat a young girl of apparently her own age. "Sleep here in peace, comfort and security," said the lady. "I will have a talk with you on the morrow," and she closed the door softly, leaving Bernardine alone with the young girl at the window, who had faced about and was regarding her eagerly. "I am awfully glad you are come," she broke in quickly; "it was terribly slow occupying this room all alone, as I told the matron awhile ago. It seems she took pity on me and sent you here. But why don't you sit down, girl? You look at me as though you were not particularly struck with my face, and took a dislike to me at first sight, as most people do." She was correct in her surmise. Bernardine _had_ taken a dislike to her, she scarcely knew why. Bernardine forgot her own trials and anxiety in listening to the sorrowful story of this hapless creature. "Why don't you try to find work in some other factory or some shop?" asked Bernardine, earnestly. "My clothes are so shabby, my appearance is against me. No one wants to employ a girl whose dress is all tatters." A sudden thought came to Bernardine, and she acted on the impulse. "Here," she said, pulling out her pocket-book--"here is ten dollars. Get a dress, and try to find work. The money is not a loan; it is a gift." The girl had hardly heard the words, ere a cry of amazement fell from her lips. She was eyeing the well-filled pocket-book with a burning gaze. CHAPTER XXXII. The girl took the money which Bernardine handed to her, her eyes following every movement of the white hand that placed the wallet back in her pocket. "You must be rich to have so much money about you," she said, slowly, with a laugh that grated harshly on Bernardine's sensitive ears. "It is not mine," said Bernardine, simply; "it is my husband's, and represents all the years of toil he has worked, and all the rigid economy he has practiced." The girl looked at her keenly. Could it be that she was simple enough to believe that the man who had deserted her so cruelly had _married_ her? Well, let her believe what she chose, it was no business of hers. The bowl of bread and milk and the cup of tea were sent up to Bernardine, and she disposed of them with a heartiness that amused her companion. "I am afraid you will not sleep well after eating so late," she said, with a great deal of anxiety in her voice.