e, and in a moment Ernestine broke the silence
with an impatient laugh.

"Well, what do you all look so horrified at? It was my own money, I
guess, and precious little at that."

"What did you pay for them?" asked Bea gravely.

"These--" Ernestine held up a pair of snowy kids, with three buttons--"I
got for a dollar and a half, cheap, because one finger is a little
soiled. This--" lifting a creamy tip, with pale blue shading--"was two
dollars. Won't it look lovely in my black hat?"

"Yes, it will look lovely," said Bea slowly; she was really too
astonished and hurt to say any more; but Kat cried out explosively:

"Oh Ernestine Dering! you selfish, selfish, old--pig, you--" "Know mama
wants shoes," interrupted Kittie, with her voice full of indignant
tears. "And you heard her say the last time she was home, that she did
not want to spend the money for them, and here you spend three dollars
and a half for--"

"Things that I want," finished Ernestine, getting up and pushing her
chair away. "I've worked hard, and I think I might spend a very little
bit of my own money. You all don't seem to think so, and you're not very
pleasant, so I'll just leave you until you are in a better humor."

With that she went out, feeling really as though she were more aggrieved
than aggressor, and stillness followed her departure.

"She's worked hard?" cried Kittie at length, with indignant scorn. "Very
hard; but mama hasn't, nor we haven't--"

"Oh don't, please," exclaimed Bea, bursting into tears. "Don't say
anything, girls; I don't know what I hadn't rather have, than for mama
to know that Ernestine would do such a thing. Oh, I wish she need never
to know it."

It did not take much thought to decide Ernestine, that she was much
abused, and though her usually laggard conscience insisted on being
touched, she solaced it by putting the tip in her hat, and seeing how
becoming it was, and by trying on the gloves, which were a perfect fit.
Then putting them away, she stole off to the garret, to carry out a
plan, made in secrecy--that of rummaging the packed trunks there, and
perhaps finding something that could be turned into a party dress, which
she was quite sure she would need. The garret was roomy and sunny, and
all the rest of the afternoon, Ernestine comforted herself, and her
abused feelings by hunting among the old trunks, and spinning many gay
dreams, wherein she dwelt in luxury, and all that heart could wish. She
had selecte