ding vividness being the
centre of love, the one special darling in _one_ home, and now she
hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one _too_ many.

CHAPTER II.

The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,--

"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.

"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
outside the car.

"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.

His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.

Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."

"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.

"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I _am_ hard to live with; but I don't
play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
mine never loved me--any of 'em--from the first."

As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
of the car window, an