t as they used to be."

The boys circled away from Betty and her chums momentarily, and the two
girls referred to came skating past. They bowed rather coldly, and then,
an acquaintance of theirs joining them, they stopped to chat with the
latter. Mollie's skate again becoming loosened, she halted to adjust it,
her friends waiting for her. It was thus that they overheard what Alice
Jallow was saying to Margaret Black, the girl who had just come up.

"Yes," Alice spoke, "she gives herself as many airs as if she was
somebody, instead of a nobody."

"A nobody?" repeated Margaret, wonderingly, "why----"

"Yes, indeed! She isn't even sure her name is Stonington, and as for Mr.
and Mrs. Stonington being her uncle and aunt as she says, why, I heard
the other day that there is doubt of that even. She and her chums think
themselves high and mighty, but we wouldn't go with anybody that didn't
know who they were!"

"But I thought there was something about a flood in the West----"

"Oh, yes, that's the story she gave out, but I, for one don't believe
it. She's a nobody, and that's all there is to it!"

Then Alice, leaving her bitter words echoing on the wintry air, which
carried them clearly to poor Amy, skated off. Perhaps Alice had not
meant that she should be overheard, but such was the case. She did not
take the trouble to look and see if the one to whom she referred was
within hearing distance.

At the first intimation of what was coming Betty had started off, as did
the other girls. Mollie seemed to have a notion of rushing over to Alice
and the others, but Grace, by a gesture, warned her not to.

Poor Amy's eyes filled with tears. She turned aside and Betty made as
though to skate after her, intending to offer words of sympathy, but
this time Mollie shook her head.

"Perhaps she had better be alone for a little while," she whispered.
"Sometimes that is the best way to pass it off. Oh, but that Alice
Jallow is a--cat!"

No one disagreed with Mollie this time.

Tears blinded the eyes of poor Amy. She skated on out of the crowd,
toward a part of the frozen river where there were no merry-makers. She
did not want to look on pleasure now, for her heart ached from the
bitter words she had overheard--words, she realized, that might be but
too true.

Blindly she skated on, not heeding, and scarcely caring where she went.
Her only desire was to get away where she could be by herself, to think
it out--to try and devise