“Then she knows?”
“Yes.”
Fanny continued to look at Ellen with the look of one who is settling down with resignation under some knife of agony.
“Well,” said she, “there's no need to talk any more about it before your father. Now I guess you had better toast him some bread for his supper.”
“Yes, I will,” replied Ellen. She looked at her mother pitifully, and yet with that firmness which had seemed to suddenly develop in her. “You know it is the best thing for me to do, mother?” she said, and although she put it in the form of a question, the statement was commanding in its assertiveness.
“When are you—goin' to work?” asked Fanny.
“Next Monday,” replied Ellen.
Chapter XXXV
When Ellen had gone to the factory to apply for work neither of the Lloyds were in the office, only a girl at the desk, whom she knew slightly. Ellen had hesitated a little as she approached the girl, who looked around with a friendly smile.
“I want to see—” Ellen began, then she stopped, for she did not exactly know for whom she should ask. The girl, who was blond and trim, clad coquettishly in a blue shirt-waist and a duck skirt, with a large, cheap rhinestone pin confining the loop of her yellow braids, looked at her in some bewilderment. She had heard of Ellen's good-fortune, and knew she was to be sent to Vassar by Cynthia Lennox. She did not dream that she had come to ask for employment.