“She certainly did,” Milly responded, a faint dimple actually appearing beside her smiling mouth. It was a new Milly, a normal, happy, excited girl whom none of the family, except perhaps Lis, who seemed to be in her secrets, recognized. Milly almost danced up to the end of the supper table, and held out a shaking hand, palm upward, to Mrs. Folger. “Look!” she demanded in a voice that shook too. “I earned it all myself. And I can make more. I’m going to pay for Barbee’s and my keep. I needn’t be a burden on even your kindness, dear Cousin Callie, though I know you’ve never felt it that, or—or made me feel it.” Stooping swiftly, she pressed her lips surprisingly to Mrs. Folger’s cheek, and then straightened in embarrassment, her own cheeks scarlet. Lying on Milly’s outspread palm there was a new, shiny ten-dollar gold piece. Aunt Callie took off her spectacles, wiped them, and, replacing them on her nose, bent nearer to study this amazing sight more carefully. “My dear child!” she ejaculated wonderingly. “Where did you come by that?” “It’s all right, mother,” Lis broke in, hurriedly. “She earned it right enough, just as she told you. Here, let me tell ‘em, Milly! You’re so excited you can’t talk straight. Mother, Milly’s been fretting her head like a silly girl over the notion that she and Barbee are dependent on us, and maybe depriving you of things you would otherwise be able to buy. Such stuff! Imagine! the little those two eat!” Lis sniffed in high scorn, and Mrs. Folger, with a little cry of protest, reached up and impulsively gathered Milly into a motherly embrace. “Well, anyhow,” Lis pursued, grinning approvingly at the two, “she did have that notion, and nothing I could do would talk her out of it. She said she simply _had_ to make money somehow—at least enough to pay for their food and clothes. And she said she believed she could do that by sewing for folks. Seems several ladies here in town, who’ve seen the things she’s made for Barbee, have told her they’d give ‘most anything to have her do the same thing for their children. Mrs. Macy over on Pearl Street, for one, and Mrs. Hedley, and one or two others. Milly had some patterns, too, that her mother had had, of the latest styles for children this last year in Boston, and they wanted her to copy these for them. But Milly was afraid you wouldn’t let her, mother. Or that you’d be afraid she couldn’t do it well enough—or—well, that something would happen to stop her. So she asked me if I thought it would be very wrong if she did some little dresses for Mrs. Macy’s baby, without telling any of the family, till we saw how they turned out. And I urged her to go ahead.”