"I must try to discover some way to earn those books,' replied Elnora. "I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying along the road wrapped in tissue paper and tagged with my name."

She went toward the city, as on yesterday. Her per- 15 plexity as to where tuition and books were to come from was worse, but she did not feel quite so bad. She never again would have to face all of it for the first time. She had been through it once and was yet living. There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidden 20 or to drop dead, and neither had happened. "I guess the best way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it," muttered Elnora, grimly.

Again she took the trail to the swamp, rearranged her hair, and left the tin pail. This time she folded a couple 25

1 Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday Page & Company. All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

of sandwiches in the napkin and tied them in a neat, light paper parcel, which she carried in her hand. Then she hurried along the road to Onabasha and found a bookstore. There she asked the prices of the list of books that 5 she needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite supply them. She anxiously inquired for secondhand books, but was told that the only way to secure them was from the last year's freshmen. Just then Elnora felt that she positively could not approach any of those she sup10 posed to be sophomores and ask to buy their old books. The only balm the girl could see for the humiliation of yesterday was to appear that day with a set of new books. "Do you wish these?" asked the clerk, hurriedly, for the store was rapidly filling with school children wanting 15 anything from a dictionary to a pen.

"Yes," gasped Elnora. "Oh, yes! but I cannot pay for them just now. Please let me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday or return them as perfect as they are. Please trust me for them a few days."

The clerk looked at her doubtfully and took her name. "I'll ask the proprietor," he said. When he came back Elnora knew the answer before he spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but Mr. Hann doesn't recognize your name. You are not a customer of ours, and he feels that 25 he can't take the risk. You'll have to bring the money."

Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy shoes beating as a hammer on her brain. She tried two other houses with the same result, and then in sick despair came into the street. What could she do? She was too 30 frightened to think. Should she stay from school that

day and canvass the homes appearing to belong to the wealthy, and try to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had suggested to Wesley Sinton? What would she dare ask

5

"O dear Lord, make it come true," prayed Elnora,at noon, maybe, she could sell some of those wonderful shining-winged things she had been collecting all her life around the outskirts of the Limberlost.

As she went down the long hall she noticed the professor of mathematics standing in the door of his recitation room. When she came up to him he smiled and spoke to her.

"I have been watching for you," he said, and Elnora 10 stopped bewildered.

15

20

"For me?" she questioned.

"Yes," said Professor Henley. "Step inside."

Elnora followed him into the room, and he swung the door behind them.

"At teachers' meeting last evening one of the professors mentioned that a pupil had betrayed in class that she had expected her books to be furnished by the city. I thought possibly it was you. Was it?"

"Yes," breathed Elnora.

"That being the case," said Professor Henley, "it just occurred to me, as you had expected that, you might require a little time to secure them, and you are too fine a mathematician to fall behind for want of supplies. So I telephoned one of our sophomores to bring her last 25 year's books this morning. I am sorry to say they are somewhat abused, but the text is all here. You can have them for two dollars, and pay when you get ready. Would you care to take them?"

Elnora sat suddenly, because she could not stand an30 other instant. She reached both hands for the books and said never a word. The professor was silent also.

At last Elnora arose, hugging those books to her heart as a mother grasps a lost baby.

So Elnora entered the auditorium a second time. Her 15 face was like the brightest dawn that ever broke over the Limberlost. No matter about the lumbering shoes and skimpy dress just now. No matter about anything; she had the books. She could take them home. In her garret she could commit them to memory, if need be. She could show that clothes were not all. If the Bird Woman did not want any of the many different kinds of specimens she had collected, she was quite sure now she could sell ferns, nuts, and a great many things. Then, too, someone moved over this morning, and several girls 25 smiled and bowed. Elnora forgot everything save her books and that she was where she could use them intelligently-everything, except one little thing away back in her head. Her mother had known about the books and the tuition and had not told her when she 30 agreed to her coming.

At noon Elnora took her little parcel of lunch and started to the home of the Bird Woman. She must know