He motioned toward a huge leather chair at his elbow and slipping into it the boy perched with anticipation on its forward edge.
"Well, what about that Miss Harling we were talking of yesterday? Has she a position yet?"
"Since last night, you mean? I don't know, sir. I haven't seen any of the Harlings to-day. But I hardly think so."
The stranger pursed his lips.
"Too bad! Too bad!" he murmured. "And you are still for helping the family out by taking a job, are you?"
"If I can get one; yes, sir."
"Just what kind of work had you in mind?"
"Why—I—I—hadn't thought about it."
"I suppose you go to school."
"Yes, sir. That's the dickens of it. My mother makes me. I'd a great deal rather go into Davis and Coulter's cotton mills. Lots of boys and girls my age do go there, and that is where my father worked before he died. But Ma is hot on education. She says I've got to have one, and she insists on sewing at home on all sorts of fool flummeries for some dressmaker so I can. It's rotten of me not to be more pleased about it, I suppose."