There was plenty of work for everybody, and there was, moreover, a variety, and Katie felt very much elated at her promotion when she first came into the gay, pleasant folding-room. But the poor girl was destined to meet with a very bitter disappointment. Perhaps the most severe trial of her life awaited her in that pleasant room. She had only been there a few days when she became aware that she was looked upon with suspicion. The superintendent watched her closely, and carefully verified the accounts she gave of her work. The girls with whom she tried to make acquaintance turned away, and either answered her in monosyllables or else declined speaking at all, and often when she came in suddenly before work had commenced two or three who were mysteriously whispering together would suddenly stop and look curiously and strangely at her. Once or twice she overheard some disconnected words, of which the following are specimens: "What was it really?"--"You don't say so!"--"Dishonesty!"--"I never should have thought it!"--"Are you sure?"--"Bertie Sanderson!"--"She saw it herself," etc. etc. Katie, having no key to these disjointed sentences, could make nothing of them, but she felt that she was what school boys call "sent to Coventry," and had not the least idea why. The fact was that Bertie, whose jealous dislike was greatly increased by Katie's promotion, while she herself remained in the rag-room, had uttered her innuendoes to all who would listen to her, till it was pretty generally understood throughout the mill that Katie Robertson was a thief, who appeared in unbecoming finery bought with ill-gotten gains. The rumor never took sufficient definiteness of shape to reach the girl so that she could confute it and explain its origin. Of course, she was not likely to tell any one in the mill about the finding of the fifty-dollar bill and what had passed between Mr. James Mountjoy and herself, since it was largely to her own credit, nor had he ever thought of mentioning it, for a somewhat similar reason. So the report traveled from one mouth to another, losing nothing in its passage, and poor Katie was obliged to endure the general avoidance and reprobation as best she might. It was a hard trial and one in which she had no one to sympathize with her, for Mrs. Robertson's gloomy disposition inclined her children to keep from her anything that might add to her unhappiness, and somehow she did not feel like making confidants of the boys. But hard as the trial seemed in the passing, it was, in the end, good for our heroine, for it drove her to the only Friend who knew all about it, who knew that she was innocent of the charge, whatever it might be, and pitied and loved her, whoever else might cast her out. The things which drive us close to Him, no matter how hard they seem, are really blessings in disguise. Katie had now but one friend in the mill, a slight, pale girl, who stood by the folding-table next to herself. She had only just