in the minds of her friends stung her
to resentment. But Abby seized her in two wiry little arms.

"I never did, I never did!" she cried. "Don't I know what you are
made of, Ellen Brewster? Don't you think I know? But after all, it
might be better for you if you were worse. That was all I meant."

Ellen, one afternoon, set out in her pretty challis, a white ground
with long sprays of blue flowers running over it, and a blue ribbon
at her neck and waist, and her leghorn hat with white ribbons, and a
knot of forget-me-nots under the brim. She wore her one pair of nice
gloves, too, but those she did not put on until she reached the
corner of the street where Cynthia lived. Then she rubbed them on
carefully, holding up her challis skirts under one arm.

Cynthia was at home, seated on the back veranda, in a rattan chair,
with a book which she was not reading. Ellen stood before her, in
her cheap attire, which she wore with an air which seemed to make it
precious, such faith she had in it. Ellen regarded her coarse
blue-flowered challis with an innocent admiration which seemed
almost able to glorify it into silk. Cynthia took in at a glance the
exceeding commonness of it all; she saw the hat, the like of which
could be seen in the milliners' windows at fabulously low prices;
the foam of spurious lace and the spray of wretched blue flowers
made her shudder. "The poor child, she must have something better
than that," she thought, and insensibly she also thought that the
girl must lose her evident faith in the splendor of such attire;
must change her standard of taste. She rose and greeted Ellen
sweetly, though somewhat reservedly. When the two were seated
opposite each other, Cynthia tried to talk pleasantly, but all the
time with a sub-consciousness as one will have of some deformity
which must be ignored. The girl looked so common to her in this
array that she began to have a hopeless feeling of disgust about it
all. Was it not manifestly unwise to try to elevate a girl who took
such evident satisfaction in a gown like that, in a hat like that?
Ellen wore her watch and chain ostentatiously. The watch was too
large for a chatelaine, but she had looped the heavy chain across
her bosom, and pinned it with the brooch which Abby Atkins had given
her, so it hung suspended. Cynthia riveted her eyes helplessly upon
that as she talked.

"I hope you are having a pleasant vacation," said she, as she looked
at the watch, and all at