ly poor. Her mother is an
invalid and her sister takes in plain sewing. I really asked her at
first because Miriam Nesbit was rude to her one day. But I'm beginning
to like her so much, now, that I'm glad I did it. She's as quiet as a
little mouse, but she is fast taking first place in class. I believe she
will outstrip Miriam before the end of the year. Don't ask me who she
is, though. I haven't the least idea, but she's all right, I can promise
you that. I'm sorry for her because she is poor. They live in a little
broken-down cottage on River Street."

Mrs. Harlowe looked dubious. Grace was always bringing home stray people
and animals, and the mother was accustomed to her daughter's whims. The
young girl was familiar to all the ragamuffins of the town slum, and
when she sometimes found one gazing wistfully through the fence palings
of her mother's old-fashioned garden, she promptly led him around to the
kitchen, gave him a plate of food on the back steps, picked him a small
bouquet and sent him off half-dazed with her gracious and impetuous
kindness.

"Well, my dear, I shall be prepared for anything," exclaimed Mrs.
Harlowe; "but remember that feeding people on the back steps and asking
them into the parlor to meet your friends and acquaintances are two
different matters altogether."

"Don't be afraid, mother," replied Grace. "You will like Anne as well as
I do, once you get to know her. You must be careful not to frighten her
at first. She is the most timid little soul I ever met."

Just then the front gate clicked and two girls strolled up the red-brick
walk, their light organdie dresses peeping out from the folds of their
long capes.

"Here come Nora and Jessica," cried Grace excitedly, running to the door
to meet her friends.

Mrs. Harlowe smiled. In spite of Grace's sixteen years she was still her
little girl.

There was another click at the gate and Mrs. Harlowe saw through the
parlor window a little, dark figure, pathetically plain in its shabby
coat and hat.

"Poor little soul," thought the good woman. "How I wish I could put her
into one of Grace's muslins, but, of course, I couldn't think of
offering to do such a thing."

"Mother," said Grace some minutes later, when the girls had laid aside
their wraps and descended into the drawing room, "this is Anne Pierson,
our new friend."

Anne Pierson, small and shrinking, was dressed in a queer, old-fashioned
black silk that had evidently been taken u