a
better game than either Louise or Emma? Have I not made the score when
their fouls would have brought it down?"

"Yes, you have. You are a better player than either. To do you justice,
Hester, you play as well as any girl on the first team."

"I do, and yet you passed me over for an inferior player. Is that
justice to either the team or me?"

"It does not appear so. Yet one cannot judge from appearances alone. I
believed that I did what was fair and honorable."

"I fail to see it that way," said Hester proudly.

"We do not see it from the same point of view."

"Evidently not. But this much I insist upon. I must know the reason why
you ignored me when you have acknowledged that I was the best player. I
demand the reason."

"Don't you know, Hester Alden? Don't you really know?"

"I do not. There is something else I do not know or understand; that is
your treatment of me for the last three weeks. Do not for a moment think
that I am begging for either your love or friendship. I wish nothing
that does not come to me of its free will. But it was you who first
wished to be friends. It was you who always made the first advances.
Time and time again, you told me that I was nearer to you than any
friend you had ever had and that I seemed more like a sister to you."

"I know," said Helen slowly. "And I meant every word. From that first
night you were here, you were never like a stranger. I meant every word
I told you."

Her voice was low and sorrowful; but Hester was unmoved. The bitter
feeling which had filled her heart for three weeks was now bursting
forth in a torrent.

"Much I care for such affection! If that is the way you treat your
sister, I am very glad I am not she. Suddenly, without a reason, you
grow haughty and rude--."

"Rude! I was never rude, Hester. I was always courteous."

"Yes, with the kind of courtesy which made me angry all over. I wish to
tell you right here, Helen Loraine, that I shall not stand being treated
so without a reason."

"I thought I had a reason. I think yet I have a reason."

"Then why did you not come to me and tell me point blank? It is far
better to accuse me of something definite than to go about acting and
looking unutterable things."

"I could not tell you. Even now, if I should tell you and ask for an
explanation--."

"I would refuse to give it. It was either your place to come directly to
me or to trust me implicitly. I would give no explanation now, if I had