Thereupon Eva fell upon her neck and told all, reiterating her intention to leave the asylum to-morrow. To her amazement she was told that some others of the girls had met the same treatment from the old superintendent, but being poor and compelled to earn a living, they had contented themselves with snubbing their elderly admirer and remaining in their places. “I should not leave, if I were you,” said Ada. “Keep your door locked hereafter and snub him if he attempts any familiarity, and he will not trouble you again. All the girls hate him but that frisky Matty Blue, and she is always going on with him, making lots of gossip. She says she does it to keep her place, and it’s true that we have to bear much insolence to keep from being discharged,” sighed Ada from the depths of her heart. CHAPTER XVIII. YOUNG LOVE. “A poor girl’s lot is indeed hard and cruel. She must bear with wrong and injustice without daring to complain,” thought Eva the next morning, reviewing the disquieting incident of the night before with the conviction that it was better, after all, to take Ada Winton’s practical advice. For where could she go if she left the asylum as she had first meant to do--where could she shelter her homeless head? The Browns were her only friends outside the hospital, and she did not know whether they would receive her under their roof or not. Besides, she had no money to get away with--not even a penny. And she could not adventure another railway trip on credit. Then she gave a little gasp of dismay, suddenly remembering the gentleman who had paid her fare when she ran away from the asylum. “Oh, dear, oh, dear, what must he think of me?” she sighed. “Oh, why did he withhold his name, and say he would call on gran’ther next week for his money? What did he think if he went and found no one to pay him? That I was a wretched little cheat, of course.” Scalding tears rushed to her eyes and she crimsoned with mortification. She had liked the kind New Yorker so much that she hated for him to believe her mean and dishonest. A bright thought came into her mind and she seized a pen and wrote rapidly on a slip of paper: “If the gentleman who paid a young girl’s fare on the train going to Clarksburg will send his address to Miss Groves, Weston, stating the amount paid, he will receive the money at once, with the thanks of the one benefited.” “I called myself Miss Groves because he called me that,” she thought; “and now if dear Doctor Bertrand will lend me enough money to pay for this advertisement I will pay the nice gentleman as soon as I begin to earn a salary here. I should like to see the kind stranger again some time.” She made up her mind to work on at the asylum patiently until some better opening presented itself, and she would be so distant and dignified with the superintendent he would not presume on her poverty again to offer her a love that was a cruel insult.