"Mamma, mamma, do not judge me or yourself so harshly. You have always been my ideal, mamma, and I was thinking of nothing worse than how to rescue you and the others from your desperate straits. How can we go on living in this way, your heart breaking, your poor, frail body overtaxed with coarse labor, and Belle, Minnie, and Fred becoming contaminated by our dreadful surroundings. The shock I've received has awakened me from my old apathy. I see that while I just toiled for daily bread, and a little of it too, we were drifting down, down. Papa grows worse and worse. Belle is in danger; and what will become of Fred and Minnie if they remain long amid such scenes? Only yesterday morning I heard Fred quarrelling with another little boy on the landing, and lisping out oaths in his anger. Oh, mamma, we must be able to look forward to some escape from all this, or else you will soon give way to despair, and the worst will come. Oh that I were a man! Oh that I knew how to do something, through which I could earn enough to put papa into an institution, such as I have read of, and give you a home worthy of the name. But I cannot. I can only do what thousands of others can do, and take my chances with them in getting work. And now I seem so broken down in body and soul that I feel as if I could never work again. There seems to be one way, mamma, in which I can help you." And then she hesitated, and a deep, burning flush crimsoned the face that was so pale before. "Well," she said, at last, in a kind of desperation, "I might as well speak plainly, if I speak at all. It's no secret to you how Roger Atwood feels toward me, and also, mamma, you know my heart. While I could kiss his hand in gratitude, while I would not shrink from any suffering for his sake, to show how deeply I appreciate the priceless service he has rendered me, still, mamma, mamma, I'm only a woman, and am cursed with all the perversity of a woman's heart. Oh, what a loyal friend, what a devoted sister I could be to him! Mamma, can't you understand me?" "Yes, Millie," sadly answered her mother.