Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/61

Rh "Yes," was the answer.

Meg was standing with her hands clasped tightly behind her back, and she looked at Mrs. Macartney very straight and hard from under her black brows.

"Mrs. Macartney," she said, "if I'm worth it, Aunt Matilda will give me fifty cents a week—and it's time I began to work for my living. Am I worth that much?"

"Yes, you are," said Mrs. Macartney, "if you go on as you've begun."

"I shall go on as I've begun," said Meg. "Thank you, ma'am." And she walked back to the house.

After dinner she waited to speak to Aunt Matilda again.

"I went to the dairy," she said.

"I know you did," Aunt Matilda answered. "Mrs. Macartney told me about it. You can go on. I'll give you the fifty cents a week."

She looked the child over again as she had done in the morning, but with a shade of expression which might have meant a touch of added interest. Perhaps her mind paused just long enough to bring back to her the time when she had been a worker at twelve years old, and also had belonged to no one.

"She'll make her living," she said, as she watched Meg out of the room. "She's more like me than she