"But I am to visit Lucia Horton this afternoon, and I must not linger,"
objected Melvina.

"It will not take long," urged Anna, clasping Melvina's arm, while
Luretta promptly grasped the other, and half led, half pushed the
surprised and uncertain Melvina along the rough slope. Anna talked
rapidly as they hurried along. "You ought really to see a clam's nest,"
she urged, between her bursts of laughter; "why, Melly, even Luretta and
I know about clams."

Anna had not intended to be rude or cruel when she first began her game
of letting Luretta see that Melly and her possessions were of no
importance, but Melvina's ignorance of the common things about her, as
well as her neatly braided hair, her white stockings and kid shoes, such
as no other child in the village possessed, made Anna feel as if Melvina
was not a real little girl, but a dressed-up figure. She chuckled at the
thought of Luretta's calling clams "birds," with a new admiration for
her friend.

"I guess after this Luretta won't always be talking about Melvina Lyon
and her dolls," she thought triumphantly; and at that moment Melvina's
foot slipped and all three of the little girls went sliding down the
sandy bluff.

The slide did not matter to either Anna or Luretta, in their stout shoes
and every-day dresses of coarse flannel, but to the carefully dressed
Melvina it was a serious mishap. Her starched skirts were crushed and
stained, her white stockings soiled, and her slippers scratched. The hat
of fine-braided straw with its ribbon band, another "present" from the
Boston relatives, now hung about her neck, and her knitting-bag was
lost.

As the little girls gathered themselves up Melvina began to cry. Her
delicate hands were scratched, and never before in her short life had
she been so frightened and surprised.

She pulled herself away from Anna's effort to straighten her hat. "You
are a rough child," she sobbed, "and I wish I had not stopped to speak
with you. And my knitting-bag with my half-finished stocking is lost!"

At the sight of Melvina's tears both Anna and Luretta forgot all about
showing her a "clam's nest," and became seriously frightened. After all,
Melly was the minister's daughter, and the Reverend Mr. Lyon was a
person of importance; why, he even had a colored body-servant, London
Atus by name, who usually walked behind the clergyman carrying his cloak
and Bible, and who opened the door for visitors. Often Melvina was
attended in her