ly's beautiful face suddenly gone white. For once
Lily was frightened. She lost all self-control. She began to sob. She
could scarcely tell the absurd story for sobs, but she told, every word.

Then, with a sudden boldness, she too turned on Mrs. Diantha. "They call
poor Amelia 'CopyCat,'" said she, "and I don't believe she would ever
have tried so hard to look like me only my mother dresses me so I look
nice, and you send Amelia to school looking awfully." Then Lily sobbed
again.

"My Amelia is at your house, as I understand?" said Mrs. Diantha, in an
awful voice.

"Ye-es, ma-am."

"Let me go," said Mrs. Diantha, violently, to Grandmother Stark, who
tried to restrain her. Mrs. Diantha dressed herself and marched down the
street, dragging Lily after her. The little girl had to trot to keep up
with the tall woman's strides, and all the way she wept.

It was to Lily's mother's everlasting discredit, in Mrs. Diantha's
opinion, but to Lily's wonderful relief, that when she heard the story,
standing in the hall in her lovely dinner dress, with the strains of
music floating from the drawing-room, and cigar smoke floating from the
dining-room, she laughed. When Lily said, "And there wasn't even any
chickenroast, mother," she nearly had hysterics.

"If you think this is a laughing matter, Mrs. Jennings, I do not," said
Mrs. Diantha, and again her dislike and sorrow at the sight of that
sweet, mirthful face was over her. It was a face to be loved, and hers
was not.

"Why, I went up-stairs and kissed the child good night, and never
suspected," laughed Lily's mother.

"I got Aunt Laura's curly, light wig for her," explained Lily, and Mrs.
Jennings laughed again.

It was not long before Amelia, in her gingham, went home, led by her
mother--her mother, who was trembling with weakness now. Mrs. Diantha
did not scold. She did not speak, but Amelia felt with wonder her little
hand held very tenderly by her mother's long fingers.

When at last she was undressed and in bed, Mrs. Diantha, looking very
pale, kissed her, and so did both grandmothers.

Amelia, being very young and very tired, went to sleep. She did not know
that that night was to mark a sharp turn in her whole life. Thereafter
she went to school "dressed like the best," and her mother petted her as
nobody had ever known her mother could pet.

It was not so very long afterward that Amelia, out of her own
improvement in appearance, developed a little stamp of in