d her own name Rebecca, and her
daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew
names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_
was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.
But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years
ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.

What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember t