u were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.

"Good? Don't--don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.

"But you _were_. I--I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I--"

Alice now flung _her_ arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I--I've been--a
little fiend, I suppose, and I _was_ horridly angry at first; but when
I--I saw how--that Cordelia really was--that she really felt what she
did, I--oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, _there's_ a little
Samaritan."

"Oh, Alice!"

"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
I'm going to behave myself, and _bear_ with her, I shall never come up
to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she _does_ dress so! I'm
going to behave myself, though, I am,--I am; but I hope she won't expect
too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."

"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
she doesn't."

And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She _does_ dress
so!"

ESTHER BODN.

CHAPTER I.

"Oh, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
me to ask you."

"If it was any other evening."

"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"

"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."