e to a dance at their house."

"Very well; I'm glad you're going to be gay," he said, not seeing the
faintly bitter smile that came to her face.

"I don't think I'll be very gay," she answered.

"I don't know why I go--nobody ever asks me to dance."

"Why not?" he asked, with an old man's astonishment.

"I don't know. Perhaps it's because I don't dress very well." Then,
as he made a sorrowful gesture, she cut him off before he could speak.
"Oh, it isn't altogether because we're poor; it's more I don't know how
to wear what I've got, the way some girls do. I never cared much
and--well, I'M not worrying, Roger! And I think I've done a good deal
with mamma's dress. It's a very grand dress. I wonder I never thought
of wearing it until to-day. I may be"--she laughed and blushed--"I may
be the belle of the ball--who knows!"

"You'll want me to walk over with you and come for you afterwards, I
expect."

"Only to take me. It may be late when I come away--if a good many
SHOULD ask me to dance, for once! Of course I could come home alone.
But Joe Louden is going to sort of hang around outside, and he'll meet
me at the gate and see me safe home."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, blankly.

"Isn't it all right?" she asked.

"I think I'd better come for you," he answered, gently. "The truth is,
I--I think you'd better not be with Joe Louden a great deal."

"Why?"

"Well, he doesn't seem a vicious boy to me, but I'm afraid he's getting
rather a bad name, my dear."

"He's not getting one," she said, gravely. "He's already got one.
He's had a bad name in Canaan for a long while. It grew in the first
place out of shabbiness and mischief, but it did grow; and if people
keep on giving him a bad name the time will come when he'll live up to
it. He's not any worse than I am, and I guess my own name isn't too
good--for a girl. And yet, so far, there's nothing against him except
his bad name."

"I'm afraid there is," said Roger. "It doesn't look very well for a
young man of his age to be doing no better than delivering papers."

"It gives him time to study law," she answered, quickly. "If he
clerked all day in a store, he couldn't."

"I didn't know he was studying now. I thought I'd heard that he was in
a lawyer's office for a few weeks last year, and was turned out for
setting fire to it with a pipe--"

"It was an accident," she interposed.

"But some pretty important papers were burned, and after that none of
the