atly
rolled silk umbrella. Above her well-cut pumps were silk stockings. She
looked surprisingly out of place, and seeming to realize it herself, she
hastily lifted the latch and went into the house.

The table was set with three places; from the kitchen the steaming
coffee-pot sent forth a delicious fragrance, while the scent of frying
bacon mingled with the almost imperceptible odor of hot rolls. A big
bunch of red roses lay by one of the places that was also graced by a
cup decorated with pink and white flowers.

"Is that you, Hertha?" came a voice from the kitchen.

"Yes, Sister," was the answer.

Ellen appeared at the kitchen doorway and after a glance gave a little
laughing bow, saying, "Good morning, Miss Ogilvie."

There are few people who look always the same; we vary in our appearance
with a headache or a drop in the thermometer; but perhaps nothing is so
quick to change our aspect as a reversal in our fortunes. Hertha had
worn a pretty suit before, she had been well-shod, but never previously
had she stood with such a quiet air of self-confidence. She blushed at
Ellen's greeting, her head drooped, and she was Hertha Williams again.

"Oh, it's great!" Ellen exclaimed. "Don't droop your head. Think what a
pity it would have been if Hertha Ogilvie had turned out to look like
Minnie Barker!"

A picture of Minnie Barker, very freckled, with a snub nose, reddish
hair and a shirtwaist that was always pulling up from her skirt at the
back, came to Hertha and she laughed. Then sobering, she said, "I'm not
going to any one who'll care. If I had a relative or two!"

"There are relatives and relatives," Ellen answered sagely. "This world
is such a raffle you might not have inherited the right kind."

"It isn't likely," Hertha added, "that I'd have gotten another set as
good as the first," and she smiled at her former sister.

"Good morning, honey," said Mammy, appearing with a plate of biscuit.

They joked a good deal during the meal to which Hertha had invited
herself and which she had planned even to the guava jelly, slightly
liquid, amorously sweet, which Miss Witherspoon assured her she would
never get in the North. The meal over they went outside and the visitor
stood with Mammy while she fed the scraps to the chickens, watching them
peck and push at one another, each trying to get the best piece.

"Hertha," Ellen said hesitatingly, "there's something Mammy and I want
to say."

Hertha shrank within he