The next morning at breakfast Ellen declared herself. She addressed her mother, but what she had to say was for the whole family.

"I just want to tell you, Ma, I'm done with stenography forever. 'Tain't my line and I know it and I should have known it long ago. Now you needn't argue because that's all there is about it."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at Ellen blankly. "Why—why, Ellen dear," she stammered, "what's this I hear you saying?"

Ellen repeated her announcement slowly and distinctly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien protested, "how can you talk so and the beautiful way you've been getting on and the beautiful way Mr. Hawes has been treating you? And what will Mr. Hawes say—poor, kind-hearted gentleman that he is! Oh, Ellen dear, with your fine looks and your fine education I beg you not to throw it all away!"

Mrs. O'Brien mopped her eyes with her apron and pleaded on. It did not occur to her to ask the reason for Ellen's sudden decision. After all, sudden decisions were merely characteristic of Ellen. Terence, however, peered at his sister sharply.

"Huh! Seems to me stenography was all right yesterday! What's happened to make you change your mind? Did that Hawes fellow say something to you last night at the Island?"

Ellen had decided that the family were not to know the details of the previous night's adventure and, before they came down in the morning, she had pledged Rosie to secrecy. Yet some sort of explanation had to be offered. She looked at Terry now with a candour that was new to her and that did much to win his support.

"Terry," she began slowly, with none of her usual aggressiveness, "you always thought my going to that business college and trying to do office work was foolish. You've said so all along. I didn't use to believe you were right but I do now. I'd never do decent office work in a hundred years. I'm sorry all the money you and dad had to put up and I'll pay you back if I can."

"Gee!" murmured Terry in astonishment, "you sure must have got some blowing up to make you feel that way about it!"

"Well, that's the way I do feel," Ellen said quietly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed, "you don't mean it—I know you don't! Why, what'll you do if you throw up this fine position with Mr. Hawes? Nowadays a girl can't sit at home and do nothing! She's either got to work or get married." Mrs. O'Brien paused with a new idea which her own words suggested to her. "Is it—is it that you're getting married?"

Ellen spoke quickly: "Ma, I expect to work and I'm going to work. But I'm going to do something I can do well."

"That you can do well!" echoed Mrs. O'Brien. "I don't rightly catch your meanin', Ellen. Here you've landed a fine position and your boss is a nice friendly gentleman and now you're turning your back on it all to take up something else! I don't understand you at all, at all! And to think," Mrs. O'Brien concluded brokenly, "of the skirts and shirtwaists that I've stayed up all hours of the night to iron for you, just to keep you lookin' sweet and clean down at that office!"

"Ma, I'm sorry to disappoint you—honest I am. But, don't you see, it's just this way: I've made a bad mistake and the sooner I get out of it the better it will be for me. What I ought to do is something I can do."

"Something you can do, indeed! And will you tell me, me lady, what is it you can do so much better than stenography?"

Ellen flushed but answered firmly: "I can trim hats."

"Trim hats!" screamed Mrs. O'Brien. "What's this ye're sayin'? Do you mean to tell me that you're willing to be a milliner when you might be a stenographer? Why, anybody at all can go and be a milliner!"

"Anybody can't be a fine milliner. And you needn't think there isn't good money in millinery. The head of a big millinery department gets a couple of thousand a year!"

Mrs. O'Brien blinked her eyes. "Has some one been offering you that kind of a position?" Her tears ceased to flow. Once again she beamed on Ellen with all her old-time pride. "Ah, Ellen, you rogue, you're keeping something back! Come, tell me what's happened!"

Ellen sighed helplessly. "Ma, I'm trying to tell you, but you make it awful hard for me. You go off every minute and don't give me a chance to finish."

Mrs. O'Brien folded her hands complacently. "Ellen dear, I won't utter another syllable—I promise you I won't. Now tell me in two words what's happened."

"Well, Ma, it's this: I'm through with stenography and I'm going in for millinery, which I think I can do better."

"But where, Ellen, where are you going in for it? That's the great p'int!"

"I'm going to try Hattie Graydon's aunt first. She always says that not one of the girls in her shop begins to have the taste that I've got, and one time she told me if ever I wanted a job to come to her."The happy look in Mrs. O'Brien's face slowly faded. Tears again filled her eyes. "And is that all you've got to tell me?"

"Yes, Ma, that's all. I'm going down to see Miss Graydon this morning."

"Oh, Ellen, Ellen, to think of your doing a thing like that without asking the advice of a soul! You're a foolish, headstrong girl!"

Ellen dropped her eyes. "George Riley thinks I'm doing right."

Mrs. O'Brien looked up sharply.

"Jarge Riley indeed! And may I ask what Jarge Riley's got to with it?"

"George and me are friends again. I thought I better tell you."

In Mrs. O'Brien amazement took the place of grief. "Ellen O'Brien, do you mean to tell me that you've took up with Jarge Riley when you might have had a gentleman like Mr. Hawes?"

The flush that her mother's words excited was one of anger as well as embarrassment. "Ma, you listen to me: I've never once told you that I might have Mr. Hawes! You've made that up yourself!"

"Made it up myself, indeed! when he's been taking you out night after night and treating you like a real lady!"

"And what's more," Ellen went on vehemently, "George Riley's worth twenty Philip Hawses!"

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her sharply. "Is it that you're going to marry Jarge Riley?"Ellen, breathing hard, made answer a little unsteadily: "Yes."

Mrs. O'Brien dropped back limply into her chair. "Mercy on us!" she wailed, "and is this the end of your fine looks and your fine education—to marry a farmer like Jarge Riley! Why, you could have had him without any business college or nothing!"

Ellen stood up and Mrs. O'Brien, her face woe-begone and tragic, made one last appeal: "Ellen O'Brien, I ask you in all seriousness, are you determined to throw yourself away like that?"

Ellen was nothing if not determined. "I'm going down to Miss Graydon's now," she said in a casual tone which ended all discussion; "and me and George will probably get married in the spring."