"Let me see," she said, thinking aloud in her mistress's hearing. "One must go to mother. She did not want me to send her any of my wages, but I know she ought to have this and more, because it cost her a good bit to fit me out when I was coming."
"Can you spare so much, Ellen?" asked Mrs. Glover.
"Oh yes, ma'am. My things are not a bit worse; mother taught me to mend a hole when it is little. She says nothing grows faster than holes. Then there will be ten shillings to go in the savings bank," she continued, as if her calculations had not been interrupted.
"Why, Ellen, have you begun to save already?"
"Mother begun for us when we were very little," replied Ellen. "Not with much, but then it was a start. She could not lay by more than a copper or two at a time, but it got us in the way of taking care of pence. I always promised her that I would save something whenever I got my wages, and I would never buy a penn'orth unless I had a penny to pay for it with. 'Do that and you'll be rich,' mother said. 'Spend less than you earn, and pay for what you get, and you'll keep out of money troubles.'"
"Anything else in the business way?" asked Mrs. Glover, who was equally amused and interested in Ellen's doings, and who, to say the truth, was learning some important lessons from what the girl told about "mother's way."
Ellen blushed and hesitated, then said slowly, "Mother told me never to forget what I owed to God, and I promised that, besides saving a bit, I would always give a bit out of my wages, whether they were little or much."
Mrs. Glover did not ask what part was to be thus devoted, but she was well assured that it would be in fair proportion to the girl's means. She said a few encouraging words to her, promised to write and let Ellen's mother know how well her daughter practised the lessons she had taught her, and then she asked, "Is there anything you have to say to me? Are you quite satisfied in your place?"
There was plainly something that Ellen wished to say, for her cheeks turned first red, then white, and her eyes filled with tears. At last it came out—
"Oh, please, ma'am, at home father used to read a chapter and pray before we went to bed at nights. Mother did in the morning, because he had to go to work so soon. And we learned verses and hymns, and mother heard us say them; but now no one hears me, or talks about these things as mother did."