ond?" she asked.

"That the Christmas-tree out there?"

"Course 'tis. Say, Lucretia, can't you come this evening and help trim?
the boys are a-going to set up the tree, and we're going to trim. Say,
can't you come?"

Then the other girls joined in: "Can't you come, Lucretia?--say, can't
you?"

Lucretia looked at them all, with her honest smile. "I don't believe I
can," said she.

"Won't they let you?--won't your aunts let you?"

"Don't believe they will."

Alma Ford stood back on her heels and threw back her chin. "Well, I
don't care," said she. "I think your aunts are _awful mean_--so there!"

Lucretia's face got pinker, and the laugh died out of it. She opened her
lips, but before she had a chance to speak, Lois Green, who was one of
the older girls, and an authority in the school, added her testimony.
"They are two mean, stingy old maids," she proclaimed; "that's what they
are."

"They're not neither," said Lucretia, unexpectedly. "You sha'n't say
such things about my aunts, Lois Green."

"Oh, you can stick up for 'em if you want to," returned Lois, with cool
aggravation. "If you want to be such a little gump, you can, an'
nobody'll pity you. You know you won't get a single thing on this
Christmas-tree."

"I will, too," cried Lucretia, who was fiery, with all her sweetness.

"You won't."

"You see if I don't, Lois Green."

"You won't."

All through the day it seemed to her, the more she thought of it, that
she must go with the others to trim the school-house, and she must have
something on the Christmas-tree. A keen sense of shame for her aunts and
herself was over her; she felt as if she must keep up the family
credit.

"I wish I could go to trim this evening," she said to Alma, as they were
going home after school.

"Don't you believe they'll let you?"

"I don't believe they'll 'prove of it," Lucretia answered, with dignity.

"Say, Lucretia, do you s'pose it would make any difference if my mother
should go up to your house an' ask your aunts?"

Lucretia gave her a startled look: a vision of her aunt's indignation at
such interference shot before her eyes. "Oh, I don't believe it would do
a mite of good," said she, fervently. "But I tell you what 'tis, Alma,
you might come home with me while I ask."

"I will," said Alma, eagerly. "Just wait a minute till I ask mother if I
can."

But it was all useless. Alma's pretty, pleading little face as a
supplement to Lucretia's, and her timorous,