g the crowd, until, pressed close to Lucy Berry's side, she
stood in the centre of the merry group about the teacher.

While the dainty envelopes were being passed around her, a shade of
wistfulness crept over the child's face, and her eager fingers crumpled the
checked apron as though Alma feared they might otherwise touch the
beautiful valentines that shone so enticingly with red and blue, gold and
silver. Suddenly Miss Joslyn spoke her name,--Alma Driscoll; only she said
"Miss Alma Driscoll," and, yes, there was no mistake about it, she had read
it off one of those vine-wreathed envelopes.

"Did you ever see such a goose!" exclaimed Ada Singer, as she watched the
mixture of shyness and eagerness with which Alma took her valentine and
opened the envelope.

Poor little Alma! How her heart beat as she unfolded her prize--and how it
sank when she beheld the coarse, flaring picture of a sewing girl, with a
disgusting rhyme printed beneath it. She dropped the valentine, a great sob
of disappointment choked her, and bursting into tears, she pushed her way
through the crowd and rushed from the schoolroom.

"What is the meaning of that?" asked Miss Joslyn.

For answer some one handed her the picture. The young lady glanced at it,
then tore it in pieces as she looked sadly around on her scholars.

"Whoever sent this knows that Alma's mother works in the factory," she
said. "It makes me ashamed of my whole school to think there is one child
in it cruel enough to do this thing;" then, amid the silent consternation
of the scholars, Miss Joslyn rose, and leaving the half-emptied box, went
home without another word.

"What a fuss about nothing," said Ada Singer. "The idea of crying because
you get a 'comic!' What else could Alma Driscoll expect?"

Lucy Berry's cheeks had been growing redder all through this scene, and now
she turned upon Ada.

"She has a right to expect a great deal else," she returned excitedly, "but
we've all been so hateful to her it's a wonder if she did. I wish I'd been
kind to her before," she continued, her heart aching with the remembrance
of the little lonely figure, and the big, hollow dinner-pail; "but I'm
going to be her friend now, always, and you can be friends with us or not,
just as you please;" and turning from the astonished Ada, Lucy Berry
marched out of the schoolroom, fearing she should cry if she stayed, and
sure that if there were any more beauties for her in the white box, her
stanc