o his face, and to make his most polite bow on every necessary
occasion.

The room began gradually to fill. One after another carriages came and
went, depositing their happy burdens of laughing boys and girls before
the great hall-door, near which some little ragged children were
standing, gazing on the fairy figures and joyous faces, and wondering,
as the wind fluttered their tattered rags, why the world was so
unequally divided--why some should have so much of the good things of
this life, and others apparently so little. Poor, weary, aching
hearts, on whom the burden and heat of the day had already fallen, they
knew not as they watched the carriages come and go, and peeped into the
warm hall all ablaze with light, how assuredly "compensation is twined
with the lot of high and low," and that the loving eye of the Almighty
Father was regarding them with the same tender care he bestowed on
their happier brothers and sisters. They only realized, as the door
closed at last with a loud clang, and they turned away to their
miserable homes, that within that large house there were warmth, light,
and gladness, and that they were shut out from them all. The calm
hushed sky had for them no lessons of faith and peaceful waiting; the
bright stars no tale of an Eye that neither slumbers nor sleeps. They
only knew it was cold, cold, and that life had for them no brightness.
So the little naked figures crept shivering away; and the happy boys
and girls gathered together in the beautiful holly-decked drawing-room
never thought of the dark places of the earth, where the sunshine
rarely penetrates, and young hearts know not what it is to laugh the
glad joyous laugh of happy childhood.

Dick, who had gathered five of his special friends around him, was
evidently holding a consultation in which he himself played the most
prominent part. The subject under consideration was that of showing
special attention throughout the entire evening to Nellie Latimer, and
of completely ignoring Ada Irvine's presence.

"Now, comrades," concluded the young orator, as a loud burst of music
warned him that the night's entertainment was about to commence, "I
presume you thoroughly understand me. Not a single hop, remember, with
Miss Irvine, and any amount of polkas and waltzes with Miss Latimer.
The former is one of your stuck-up young ladies, who grow old before
their time; the latter, a tip-top girl like Win. I have told you what
I know concerni