"Oh, bother!" cried Alice. But all the same she was pleased, and when Elma tucked her small hand inside of her arm Alice did not shake her off.

"Any one can see that," continued Elma Lewis; "but I don't think she is quite so bad as you paint her, Alice."

Alice's private opinion of Elma was that she was a little toad, and she now managed to extricate herself from the smaller girl's clasp.

"I shall never like her," she said. "There is no good in your praising her to me. If you mean to be her friend you must do so from a double motive."

"How uncharitable of you!" cried Elma, coloring crimson as she spoke.

"Oh, I can guess it very well, my dear," pursued Alice. "But for you she would not be a member of the Tug-of-war. What would have been a delightful society, a pleasure to the best girls at Middleton School, will be nothing whatever but a ridiculous farce, a scene of high comedy, something contemptible, now that Kitty Malone has joined it. But for you she would never have been asked to join. Why did you do it, Elma?"

"For no reason in particular," answered Elma.

"That is certainly not true, and you know it."

"I cannot think why you speak to me in that tone," said Elma. "What have I done to you that you should think so badly of me?"

"Oh, I don't think badly of you, Elma, not specially; but I have always seen that whatever you did, you did with a reason. In your own way you are clever, you are extremely worldly wise. There are certain people who would commend you; but you are not like the rest of us. You are not like Gwin for instance, nor like Bessie, nor like me. Yes, I will frankly say so, I am better than you, Elma. I have not got your double motives for everything. You are only a girl now; I don't know what you will be when you are a woman!"

The thought of the eight sovereigns so comfortably reposing in her pocket made Elma able to bear this very direct attack. She determined to take it good-humoredly; there was no use whatever in quarreling with Alice. Accordingly she said cheerfully:

"You may think what you like of me, Ally, but I hope in the course of years that you will find I am not so bad as you paint me."

Shortly afterward the girls parted, and each went on her way to her special home. Bessie ran briskly up the short avenue which led to her house, waving farewells to her companions as she did so. Alice and Kitty were obliged to content themselves one with the other; and Elma, in the highest good-humor, her heart bubbling over with bliss, departed in the direction of her own humbler residence. She had to walk quite a mile and a half, and at the end of that time she found herself in a much poorer part of the large suburb where Middleton School was situated. The houses here were of a humble description--not even semidetached, but standing in long, dismal rows, a good many of them backing on to a railway-cutting. These houses boasted of no small gardens, but ran flush with the road. They were built of the universal yellow brick, and were about as ugly as they could well be.

Elma paused at No. 124 Constantine Road. As she did so, a high, rasping, and fretful voice screamed to her from an upper window:

"You are later than ever to-day, Elma, and mother has been fretting herself into hysterics. Do come in at once and be quick about it."

Elma mounted the two or three steps which led to the hall door, and pulled the bell with considerably more energy than was her wont. The sovereigns were in her pocket; they made all the difference to her between misery and happiness. She entered the house in high good-humor.

"What is it, Carrie?" she called to the fretful voice, which was now approaching nearer.

The next moment a slatternly-looking girl appeared at the head of the stairs.

"It's very easy for you to ask what is it," cried its owner, speaking in high dudgeon. "You promised to be in between five and six, and it is now between seven and eight. Here is all my chance of an evening's fun knocked on the head. It's just like you, Elma; that it is."

"Oh, never mind now; please don't scold me," said Elma. "What is it--about mother; has she been bad again?"

"Oh, it's the usual thing; she has had one of those dismal letters from father. I can't imagine why she thinks anything about them. It came just when we were all sitting down to dinner, and she began to cry in that feeble sort of fashion."

"Oh, don't, Carrie; she will hear you," said Elma. "Pray go back to your room, and I'll be with you in a minute. I have something to tell you.

You won't be quite so miserable when you hear my news."

Carrie stared at Elma, and then slowly backed until she reached a very minute bedroom which she and Elma shared together.

Elma ran briskly upstairs. Turning to her right, she knocked at a certain door; waited for an answer, but none came; then turned the handle and went in. The Venetian blinds were down here, and the form of a woman was seen lying in the center of a big bed.

"Is that you, Elma?" said a voice; and then the head was buried once more in the pillows, and no further notice whatever was taken.

"Yes, mother, I am here," answered Elma. "I was thinking you might like something nice for your supper--a crab or a lobster, or something of that sort. Which would be your preference, mother?"

"A crab or a lobster!" muttered Mrs. Lewis. "You might as well ask me if I should like a bottle of champagne, or some caviare. One is about as likely to be forthcoming as the other."

"I tell you you may choose," said Elma. "I have my hat still on, and I'll go as far as the fishmonger's, and bring in either a lobster or a crab."

Mrs. Lewis raised herself on her elbow as Elma spoke.

"What are you dreaming about?" she said. "Where have you got the money?"

"Never mind. I have got the money. Which Would be your preference?"

"Oh, crab, dear; crab. I like it when it's well dressed; but then Maggie never can do anything properly."

"I'll dress it on this occasion," said Elma. "You shall have a good supper--crab and salad, and--There mother, do keep up heart again; you give way too much."

"Ah, child," said poor Mrs. Lewis, "I have had another terrible letter.

He says he is starving; he cannot get work. I made the greatest possible mistake in allowing him to leave the country."

"You could do nothing else," said Elma, with a little stamp of her foot.

"You know he would not help you in any way; he had to leave. But there, mother, you shall tell me the dismal news after tea. You will feel ever so much better when you have partaken of the dainty meal I mean to get for you."

Mrs. Lewis did not say anything further. Elma bent down, touched her parent on her brow with the lightest possible caress, and then stepped on tiptoe out of the room.

"Poor mother!" she muttered. "It is surprising the kind of things that comfort one; she is soothed at the thought of crab for supper with salad. Well, that is all right; she will be as amiable and petting to me as possible for the rest of the day. Now, then, for Carrie. A loose, untidy, badly, hung together girl like Carrie is a trial to any sister.

However, I know the sort of thing that pleases her. I must be very careful of my treasure-trove. I shall not spend it lightly; but in giving my family small unexpected surprises it will be doing me an immensely good turn."

Elma now entered the room where Carrie was fuming up and down.

"Well, what have you to say for yourself, miss?" she cried, when her younger sister put in an appearance.

"Only that I am very sorry, Carrie; but to be honest with you, I quite forgot that you wanted to go out this afternoon. Did I not tell you that I was engaged to tea at Gwin Harley's?"

"You are forever with that odious girl," said Carrie.

"Gwin Harley an odious girl! What in the world do you mean?"

"What I say. Oh, of course I have seen her, and I know she's pretty, or some people would think her so; in my opinion she's vastly too stuck up; and so Sam Raynes says. Sam saw her last Sunday in church, and he said she wasn't a bit his style."

"Oh, pray, don't quote Sam Raynes to me," said Elma. "Well, Carrie, of course I had tea with Gwin, and of course she's about the nicest girl in the world; and Kitty Malone was there, that scamp of an Irish girl. Oh, she's not so bad when you get to know her better. And Alice Denvers was there, and Bessie Challoner. We had quite a nice time. Of course I told you about that society that I have joined. Well, there are about ten girls members now, quite the elite of the school. I believe we shall do a vast lot of good."

"What does it matter to me," said Carrie, stamping her foot. "I have lost my pleasant afternoon with Sam. He and his sister promised to meet me. I was to go with them to the Crystal Palace. Oh, it's too provoking."

Carrie still fumed up and down the room.

"And I have such a dull time," she continued; "those children are quite past bearing. They wear the very life out of me. See what that little imp of a Claude did to my dress this afternoon."

As Carrie spoke she held up a decidedly shabby dress, which bore a huge rent at one side.