"Apparently of a red-cheeked, nursery-maid sort of a person who had taught in the public schools. I saw him afterwards holding forth on the needs of the Popham Institute to a young woman with a high pompadour and wearing a red shirt-waist, a string of blue beads and a large glittering watch-chain--the kind with a slide. I think she must have been what he was looking for. Anyway the Whitcher people told me he had engaged her." Elizabeth gazed at her friend, a sort of aching sympathy withholding her from speech. "After that," pursued Miss Tripp, "I went to another agency, and they asked me if I would like to travel abroad with a lady and her two daughters. I thought I should like it very much indeed--I could engage Cousin Sophia to stay with mother, you know--so I took the car out to Chelsea to see a Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher, and found what she was looking for was really an experienced lady's-maid and courier rolled into one, and that she expected 'willing services in exchange for expenses.' I told her I couldn't think of such a thing. Then Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher rose up--she was a big, raw-boned person glittering with diamonds--and informed me that she had fifty-nine applications for the position--I was the sixtieth, it seems--and that she was sure I would be unable to perform the duties of the position. After that I came directly home. Monday I shall----" Miss Tripp paused apparently to remove her veil; when she finished her sentence it was in a steady, matter-of-fact voice. "I shall go to see an old friend of mother's--a Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield--I think you've heard me speak of her, Elizabeth. She and mother were very intimate once upon a time, and Mr. Crownenshield owed his success in business to my father. I'm going to--ask her advice. Now I think I'll go up-stairs and take off these damp skirts, and after that I'll come down and help you mend stockings, or anything----. Only let me do something, Elizabeth!" There was almost a wail in the tired voice, and Elizabeth, wiser than she knew, pulled out her mending-basket with a smile. "I'm almost ashamed to confess that I need some help badly," she said. "I hope you won't be horrified at the condition of Carroll's stockings." Miss Tripp was quite her charming self again when she reappeared clad in a trailing gown of rosy lavender. She told the children the lively tale of the goose-girl, which she had promised them in the morning, choosing the while the stockings with the most discouraging holes out of Elizabeth's basket and protesting that she loved--yes, positively adored--darning stockings. But she finished her self-imposed task at an early hour, and after playing two or three tuneful little chansonettes on Elizabeth's hard-worked and rather shabby piano, excused herself.