t they were laughing at--the clothes my mother had made for me
and I had felt so proud of. That burnt me like iron, and I think my lip
must have dropped, but Alma showed no mercy.

"Dare say the little doll thinks herself pretty, though," she said. And
then she passed on, and the girls with her, and as they went off they
looked back over their shoulders and laughed again.

Never since has any human creature--not even Alma herself--made me
suffer more than I suffered at that moment. My throat felt tight, tears
leapt to my eyes, disappointment, humiliation, and shame swept over me
like a flood, and I stood squeezing my little handkerchief in my hand
and feeling as if I could have died.

At the next moment Mildred stepped back to me, and putting her arm about
my waist she said:

"Never mind, Mary. She's a heartless thing. Don't have anything to do
with her."

But all the sunshine had gone out of the day for me now and I cried for
hours. I was still crying, silently but bitterly, when, at eight
o'clock, we were saying the night prayers, and I saw Alma, who was in
the opposite benches, whispering to one of the girls who sat next to her
and then looking straight across at me.

And at nine o'clock when we went to bed I was crying more than ever, so
that after the good-night-bell had been rung and the lights had been put
down, Sister Angela, not knowing the cause of my sorrow, stepped up to
my bed before going down stairs for her own studies, and whispered:

"You mustn't fret for home, Mary. You will soon get used to it."

But hardly had I been left alone, with the dull pain I could find no
ease for, when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and, looking up, I
saw a girl in her nightdress standing beside me. It was Alma and she
said:

"Say, little girl, is your name O'Neill?"

Trembling with nervousness I answered that it was.

"Do you belong to the O'Neills of Ellan?"

Still trembling I told her that I did.

"My!" she said in quite another tone, and then I saw that by some means
I had begun to look different in her eyes.

After a moment she sat on the side of my bed and asked questions about
my home--if it was not large and very old, with big stone staircases,
and great open fireplaces, and broad terraces, and beautiful walks going
down to the sea.

I was so filled with the joy of finding myself looking grand in Alma's
eyes that I answered "yes" and "yes" without thinking too closely about
her questions, and