Her plan once made, Georgie suffered no grass to grow under her feet. On the way home she bought some cheese-cloth and a stiff little brush with a pointed end for carvings, and before the next day had provided herself with a quantity of large soft dusters and two little phials of alcohol and oil, and had hunted up a small pair of bellows, which experience had shown her were invaluable for blowing the dust out of delicate objects. Her first essay was a perfect success. Mrs. St. John, quite at a loss how to face the changed situation, gave her a half-troubled welcome; but Georgie's business-like methods reassured her. She followed her about and watched her handle each fragile treasure with skilful, delicate fingers till all was in perfect fresh order, and gave a great sigh of admiration and relief when the work was done.

"Now come and sit down," she said. "How tired you must be!"

"Not a bit," declared Georgie; "I like to dust, strange to say, and I'm not tired at all; I only wish I had another job just like it to do at once. I see it's what I was made for."

By the end of the week Georgie had another regular engagement, and it became necessary to break the news of her new occupation to Cousin Vi. I regret to say that the disclosure caused an "unpleasantness," between them.

"I would not have believed such a thing possible even with you," declared that lady with angry tears. "The very idea marks you out as a person of low mind. It's enough to make your Grandmother Talcott rise from her grave! In the name of common decency, couldn't you hunt up something to do, if do you must, except this?"

"Nothing that I could do so well and so easily, Cousin Vi."

"Don't call me Cousin Vi, I beg! There was no need of doing anything whatever. I asked you to stay here, – you cannot deny that I did."

"I don't wish to deny it," said Georgie, gently. "It was ever so kind of you, too. Don't be so vexed with me, Cousin Vi. We look at things differently, and I don't suppose either of us can help it; but don't let us quarrel. You're almost the only relative that I have in the world."

"Quarrel!" cried Miss Talcott with a shrill laugh, – "quarrel with a girl that goes out dusting! That isn't in my line, I am happy to say. As for being relatives, we are so no longer, and I shall say so to everybody. Great Heavens! what will people think?"

After this outburst it was evident to Georgie that it was better that she should leave Miss Sally's as soon as possible. But where to go? She consulted Miss Sally. That astute person comprehended the situation in the twinkling of an eye, and was ready with a happy suggestion.

"There's my brother John's widder in the lower street," she said. "She's tolerably well off, and hasn't ever taken boarders; but she's a sort of lonesome person, and I shouldn't wonder if I could fix it so she'd feel like taking you, and reasonable too. It's mighty handy about that furniture of yours, for her upstairs rooms ain't got nothing in them to speak of, and of course she wouldn't want to buy. I'll step down after dinner and see about it."

Miss Sally was a power in her family circle, and she knew it. Before night she had talked Mrs. John Scannell into the belief that to take Georgie to board at five dollars a week was the thing of all others that she most wanted to do; and before the end of two days all was arranged, and Georgie inducted into her new quarters. It was a little low-pitched, old-fashioned house, but it had some pleasant features, and was very neat. A big corner room with a window to the south and another to the sunset was assigned to Georgie for her bedroom. The old furniture that she had been used to all her life made it look homelike, and the hair-cloth sofa and the secretary and square mahogany table were welcome additions to the rather scantily furnished sitting-room below, which she shared at will with her hostess. Mrs. Scannell was a gentle, kindly woman, the soul of cleanliness and propriety, but subject to low spirits; and contact with Georgie's bright, hopeful youth was as delightful to her as it was beneficial. She soon became very fond of "my young lady," as she called her, and Georgie could not have been better placed as to kindness and comfortableness.

A better place than Sandyport for just such an experiment as she was making could scarcely have been found. Many city people made it their home for the summer; but at all times of the year there was a considerable resident population of wealthy people. Luxurious homes were rather the rule than the exception, and there was quite a little rivalry as to elegance of appointment among them. Mrs. St. John's enthusiasm and Mrs. St. John's recommendation bore fruit, and it was not long before Georgie had secured her coveted "four places."

Two of her employers were comparative strangers; with the fourth, Mrs. Constant Carrington, she had been on terms of some intimacy in the old days, but was not much so now. It is rather difficult to keep up friendship with your "dusting girl," as her Cousin Vi would have said; Mrs. Carrington called her "Georgie" still, when they met, and was perfectly civil in her manners, but always there was the business relation to stand between them, and Georgie felt it. Mrs. St. John still tried to retain the pretty pretext that Georgie's labors were a sort of joke, a playing with independence; but there was nothing of this pretext with the other three. To them, Georgie was simply a useful adjunct to their luxurious lives, as little to be regarded as the florist who filled their flower-boxes or the man who tuned their pianos.

These little rubs to self-complacency were not very hard to bear. It was not exactly pleasant, certainly, to pass in at the side entrance where she had once been welcomed at the front door; to feel that her comings and her goings were so insignificant as to be scarcely noticed; now and then, perhaps, to be treated with scant courtesy by an ill-mannered servant. This rarely chanced, however. Georgie had a little natural dignity which impressed servants as well as other people, and from her employers she received nothing but the most civil treatment. Fashion is not unkindly, and it was still remembered that Miss Talcott was born a lady, though she worked for a living. There were stormy days and dull days, days when Georgie felt tired and discouraged; or, harder still to bear, bright days and gala days, when she saw other girls of her age setting forth to enjoy themselves in ways now closed to her. I will not deny that she suffered at such moments, and wished with all her heart that things could be different. But on the whole she bore herself bravely and well, and found some happiness in her work, together with a great deal of contentment.

Mrs. St. John added to her difficulties by continual efforts to tempt her to do this and that pleasant thing which Georgie felt to be inexpedient. She wanted her favorite to play at young ladyhood in her odd minutes, and defy the little frosts and chills which Georgie instinctively knew would be her portion if she should attempt to enter society again on the old terms. If Georgie urged that she had no proper dress, the answer was prompt, – "My dear, I am going to give you a dress;" or, "My dear, you can wear my blue, we are just the same height." But Georgie stood firm, warded off the shower of gifts which was ready to descend upon her, and loving her friend the more that she was so foolishly kind, would not let herself be persuaded into doing what she knew was unwise.

"I can't be two people at once," she persisted. "There's not enough of me for that. You remember what I said that first day, and I mean to stick to it. You are a perfect darling, and just as kind as you can be; but you must just let me go my own way, dear Mrs. St. John, and be satisfied to know that it is the comfort of my life to have you love me so much, though I won't go to balls with you."

But though Georgie would not go to balls or dinner-parties, there were smaller gayeties and pleasures which she did not refuse, – drives and sails now and then, tickets to concerts and lectures, or a long quiet Sunday with a "spend the night" to follow. These little breaks in her busy life were wholesome and refreshing, and she saw no reason for denying them to herself. There was nothing morbid in my little Knight of Labor, which was one reason why she labored so successfully.

So the summer came and went, and Georgie with it, keeping steadily on at her daily task. All that she found to do she did as thoroughly and as carefully as she knew how. She was of real use, and she knew it. Her work had a value. It was not imaginary work, invented as a pretext for giving her help, and the fact supported her self-respect.

We are told in one of our Lord's most subtly beautiful parables, that to them who make perfect use of their one talent, other talents shall be added also. Many faithful workers have proved the meaning and the truth of the parable, and Georgie Talcott found it now among the rest. With the coming in of the autumn another sphere of activity was suddenly opened to her. It sprang, as good things often do, from a seeming disappointment.

She was drawing on her gloves one morning at the close of her labors, when a message was brought by the discreet English butler.

"Mrs. Parish says, Miss, will you be so good as to step up to her morning-room before you go."

"Certainly, Frederick." And Georgie turned and ran lightly upstairs. Mrs. Parish was sitting at her writing-table with rather a preoccupied face.

"I sent for you, Miss Talcott, because I wanted to mention that we are going abroad for the winter," she began. "Maud isn't well, the doctors recommend the Riviera, so we have decided rather suddenly on our plans, and are to sail on the 'Scythia' the first of November. We shall be gone a year."

"Dear me," thought Georgie, "there's another of my places lost! It is quite dreadful!" She was conscious of a sharp pang of inward disappointment.

"My cousin, Mrs. Ernest Stockton, is to take the place," continued Mrs. Parish. "Her husband has been in the legation at Paris, you know, for the last six years, but now they are coming back for good; and when I telegraphed her of our decision, she at once cabled to secure this house. They will land the week after we sail, and I suppose will want to come up at once. Now, of course all sorts of things have got to be done to make ready for them; but it's out of the question that I should do them, for what with packing and the children's dressmaking and appointments at the dentist's and all that, my hands are so full that I could not possibly undertake anything else. So I was thinking of you. You have so much head and system, you know, and I could trust you as I could not any stranger, and you know the house so well; and you could get plenty of people to help, so that it need not be burdensome. There will be some things to be packed away, and the whole place to be cleaned, floors waxed and curtains washed, the Duchesse dressing-tables taken to pieces and done up and fluted, – all that sort of thing, you know. Oh! and there would be an inventory to make, too; I forgot that. Then next year I should want it gone over again in the same way, – the articles that are packed taken out and put into place, and so on, that it may look natural when we come home. My idea would be to move the family down to New York on the 15th, so as to give you a clear fortnight, and just come up for one day before we sail, for a final look. Of course I should leave the keys in your charge, and I should want you to take the whole responsibility. Now, will you do it, and just tell me what you will ask for it all?"

"May I think it over for one night?" said prudent Georgie. "I will come to-morrow morning with my answer."

She thought it over carefully, and seemed to see that here was a new vista of remunerative labor opened to her, of a more permanent character than mere dusting. So she signified to Mrs. Parish that she would undertake the job, and having done so, bent her mind to doing it in the best possible manner. She made careful lists, and personally superintended each detail. Miss Sally recommended trustworthy workpeople, and everything was carried out to the full satisfaction of Mrs. Parish, who could not say enough in praise of Georgie and her methods.

"It robs going to Europe of half its terrors to have such a person to turn to," she told her friends. "That little Miss Talcott is really wonderful, – so clear-headed and exact. It's really extraordinary where she learned it all, such a girl as she is. If any of you are going abroad, you'll find her the greatest comfort possible."

These commendations bore fruit. People in Sandyport were always setting forth for this part of the world or that, and leaving houses behind them. A second job of the same sort was soon urged upon Georgie, followed by a third and a fourth. It was profitable work, for she had fifty dollars in each case (a hundred for her double job at the Algernon Parishes'); so her year's expenses were assured, and she was not sorry when another of her "dusting" families went to Florida for the winter.

It became the fashion in Sandyport to employ "little Miss Talcott." Her capabilities once discovered, people were quick in finding out ways in which to utilize them. Mrs. Robert Brown had the sudden happy thought of getting Georgie to arrange the flowers for a ball which she was giving. Georgie loved flowers, and had that knack of making them look charming in vases which is the gift of a favored few. The ball decorations were admired and commented upon; people said it was "so clever of Mrs. Brown," and "so much better than stiff things from a florist's," and presently half a dozen other ladies wanted the same thing done for them. Fashion and sheep always follow any leader who is venturesome enough to try a new fence.

Later, Mrs. Horace Brown, with her cards out for a great lawn-party, had the misfortune to sprain her ankle. In this emergency she bethought herself of Georgie, who thereupon proved so "invaluable" as a dea ex machina behind the scenes, that thenceforward Mrs. Brown never felt that she could give any sort of entertainment without her help. Engagements thickened, and Georgie's hands became so full that she laughingly threatened to "take a partner."

"That's just what I always wanted you to do," said Mrs. St. John, – "a real nice one, with heaps of money, who would take you about everywhere, and give you a good time."

"Oh, that's not at all the sort I want," protested Georgie, laughing and blushing. "I mean a real business partner, a fellow-sweeperess and house-arranger and ball-supper-manageress!"

"Wretched girl, how horribly practical you are! I wish I could see you discontented and sentimental just for once!"

"Heaven forbid! That would be a pretty state of things! Now good-by. I have about half a ton of roses to arrange for Mrs. Lauriston."

"Oh, – for her dance! Georgie," coaxingly, "why not go for once with me? Come, just this once. There's that white dress of mine from Pingat, with the Point de Venie sleeves, that would exactly fit you."

"Nonsense!" replied Georgie, briefly. She kissed her friend and hurried away.

"I declare," soliloquized Mrs. St. John, looking after her, "I could find it in my heart to advertise