ng of that image of Cynthia which was
always present before her mind. Ellen saw Cynthia very seldom. Once
or twice she arrayed herself in her best and made a formal call of
gratitude, and once Fanny went with her. Ellen saw the incongruity
of her mother in Cynthia's drawing-room with a torture which she
never forgot. Going home she clung hard to her mother's arm all the
way. She was fairly fierce with love and loyalty. She was so
indignant with herself that she had seen the incongruity. "I think
our parlor is enough sight prettier than hers," she said, defiantly,
when they reached home and the hideous lamp was lighted. Ellen
looked around the ornate room, and then at her mother, as with a
challenge in behalf of loyalty, and of that which underlies
externals.

"I rather guess it is," agreed Fanny, happily, "and I don't s'pose
it cost half so much. I dare say that mat on her hearth cost as much
as all our plush furniture and the carpet, and it is a dreadful
dull, homely thing."

"Yes, it is," said Ellen.

"I wish I'd been able to keep my hands as white as Miss Lennox's,
an' I wish I'd had time to speak so soft and slow," said Fanny,
wistfully. Then Ellen had her by both shoulders, and was actually
shaking her with a passion to which she very seldom gave rein.

"Mother," she cried--"mother, you know better, you know there is
nobody in the whole world to me like my own mother, and never will
be. It isn't being beautiful, nor speaking in a soft voice, nor
dressing well, it's the being you--_you_. You know I love you best,
mother, you know, and I love my own home best, and everything that
is my own best, and I always will." Ellen was almost weeping.

"You silly child," said Fanny, tenderly. "Mother knows you love her
best, but she wishes for your sake, and especially since you are
going to have advantages that she never had, that she was a little
different."

"I don't, I don't," said Ellen, fiercely. "I want you just as you
are, just exactly as you are, mother."

Fanny laughed tearfully, and rubbed her coarse black head against
Ellen's lovingly with a curious, cat-like motion, then bade her run
away or she would not get her dress done. A dressmaker was coming
for a whole week to the Brewster house to make Ellen's outfit. Mrs.
Zelotes had furnished most of the materials, and Andrew was to pay
the dressmaker. "You can take a little more of that money out of the
bank," Fanny said. "I want Ellen to go looking so she wo