ace. He was naturally more observing than Richard, and with the same
advantages would have polished sooner. Though a little afraid of
Ethelyn, there was something in her refined, cultivated manners very
pleasing to him, and his soft eyes looked down upon her kindly as he
took the cap and carried it to his room, laying it carefully away in the
drawer where his Sunday shirts, and collars, and "dancing pumps," and
fishing tackle, and paper of chewing tobacco were.

Meanwhile, John, who was even more shy of Ethelyn than James, had been
made the recipient of the elegantly embroidered slippers, which
presented so marked a contrast to his heavy cowhides, and were three
sizes too small for his mammoth feet. Ethelyn saw the discrepancy at
once, and the effort it was for John to keep from laughing outright, as
he took the dainty things into which he could but little more than
thrust his toes.

"You did not know what a Goliath I was, nor what stogies I wore; but I
thank you all the same," John said, and with burning blushes Ethelyn
turned next to her beautiful Schiller--the exquisite little bust--which
Andy, in his simplicity mistook for a big doll, feeling a little
affronted that Ethelyn should suppose him childish enough to care for
such toys.

But when Richard, who stood looking on, explained to his weak brother
what it was, saying that people of cultivation prized such things as
these, and that some time he would read to him of the great German poet,
Andy felt better, and accepted his big doll with a very good grace.

The coiffure came next, Mrs. Markham saying she was much obliged, and
Eunice asking if it was a half-handkerchief, to be worn about the neck.

Taken individually and collectively, the presents were a failure--all
but the pretty collar and ribbon-bow, which, as an afterthought, Ethelyn
gave to Eunice, whose delight knew no bounds. This was something she
could appreciate, while Ethelyn's gifts to the others had been far
beyond them, and but for the good feeling they manifested might as well
have been withheld. Ethelyn felt this heavily, and it did not tend to
lessen the bitter disappointment which had been gnawing in her heart
ever since she had reached her Western home. Everything was different
from what she had pictured it in her mind--everything but Daisy's face,
which, from its black-walnut frame above her piano, seemed to look so
lovingly down upon her. It was a sweet, refined face, and the soft eyes
of b