feel all the more pride in the distinction of her
family? Assuredly she had often whispered to herself that poverty did
not matter when one bore a distinguished name.

Betty smothered a sigh and a yawn. It was tiresome to be sitting there
thinking and reproaching herself when the others were having such a
good time. How splendidly Billy Webster and Mollie danced together!
He was so strong and dictatorial, so certain of his own judgment and
opinions. And Mollie so gentle and yielding! She smiled over her
foolish romancing, and yet there was no use pretending that they would
not make a suitable match should things turn out that way. Mollie and
Polly might possibly never be exactly what they had been to each other
in the past, and Mrs. Wharton had re-married, and Sylvia would soon be
going away to study nursing.

But some one was passing close by and trying to attract her attention.
Betty waved her hand, but when she had gone frowned a little anxiously.

Edith Norton was dancing with the friend whom she had persuaded Meg to
ask to her Camp Fire dinner, although none of the rest of the girls
liked him. He was a good deal older than their other young men
acquaintances and a stranger to most of them, having only come to
Woodford in the past six months and opened a drug store. But he had
been entirely devoted to Edith since, and of course as she was nearly
twenty she should know her own mind. Notwithstanding, Betty felt
uneasy and uncomfortable. They had been hearing things not to
Frederick Howard's credit in the village, and Edith had always been
unlike the rest of their Sunrise Camp Fire girls. She was vainer and
more frivolous and dreadfully tired of working in a millinery shop in
Woodford. This much she had confided to Betty after coming to live in
the Ashton house. And both Rose Dyer and Miss McMurtry were afraid
that Edith might for this reason accept the first opportunity that
apparently offered to make life easier for her. So they had asked
Betty to use her influence whenever it was possible. Betty it was who
had first brought Edith into their club, and Edith had always cared for
her and admired her more than any other of her associates.

Betty stirred restlessly. Would she never be able to get away from
serious thoughts tonight? But the next instant she had jumped to her
feet with a quickly smothered cry and stood with her hands clasped
tightly over her eyes. For all around her, in her hair fallin