"Like as not he's going to take it home to his own girl!" she said. "I saw her in the street the other day, and I wouldn't have been seen dead with the hat she had on; not a flower, nor even a scrap of a feather; just a plain band and a goose-quill stuck in it. Real poorhouse, I thought it looked, and he as rich as a Jew. I guess I sha'n't go to Mr. Gordon; he's just as hateful as he can be. He gave out word that no one was to touch that bag, nor so much as go near it; and he had it set off in a corner of the outer shed, close by the chloride barrels, so that everything in it will smell like poison. If that isn't mean, I don't know what is. "Well, I can't stay here all day, Mame. Aren't you coming?" "Pretty soon!" said Mary. "Don't wait for me, Lena! I want to finish this stint, so as to have the afternoon off. Mother's poorly to-day, and I want to cook something nice for her supper." Lena nodded and went out, shutting the door with a defiant swing. Mary looked after her doubtfully, as if hesitating whether she ought not to follow and make some stronger plea; but the next moment she bent over her work again. "I must hurry!" she said. "I'll see Lena after dinner, and try to make her promise not to touch that bag. I don't see what has got into her." Mary worked away steadily. The rags were piled in an iron sieve before her; they were mostly the kind called "Blue Egyptians," cotton cloth dyed with indigo, which had come far across the sea from Egypt. Musty and fusty enough they were, and Mary often turned her head aside as she sorted them carefully, putting the good rags into a huge basket that stood beside her on the floor, while the bits of woollen cloth, of paper and string and other refuse, went into different compartments of the sorting-table, which was something like an old-fashioned box-desk.