d love for midnight "spreads" seemed to have departed. She
became fastidious about her personal appearance and exclusive in her
friendships.

At first Mrs. Hosmer considered it a good thing that Marie was "toning
down," but before long she felt that it was really not a change for the
better.

The schoolgirls were not slow in commenting about it. At the October
meeting of the Browning Circle--an association of a dozen girls,
originally instituted for purposes of literary improvement, but which
had lately degenerated into a "fancy-work society"--Marie was discussed
until her ears must have burned, if there is any truth in the old
saying.

"Do you know, girls, that Marie Smith scarcely deigns to speak to me any
more," said Stella Gard.

"Oh, that's nothing, Stella. I was her room-mate last year, and she
has conversed with me on just two occasions since she came back,"
supplemented Anna Fergus.

"What is the matter with her?" asked a "new girl."

"Is it possible, my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock
gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the North
Avenue Archingtons?"

The new girl looked bewildered, and Anna went on to explain:

"It seems that last summer certain blue-blooded Archingtons, with malice
aforethought, left their patrician heights on North Avenue, on which
they had hitherto dwelt in solitary grandeur, and went to Cape May.
There they boarded at the same hotel with the Smith family, and deigned
to bestow a few smiles upon them. This so lifted up the heart of Marie
Smythe, formerly Mary Smith, that she no longer regards her humble
class-mates as fit associates for her. _Hinc illae lacrymae_, which
means, all you who don't know Latin, 'that's why I'm using my
handkerchief.'"

"She told me," said little Zoe Binnex, interrupting Anna's nonsense,
"that Mrs. Archington had invited her mother to visit her."

"I wish some of you were doomed to sit at the same table with her, as I
am," Anna went on, "and then you would wish the Archingtons at the
bottom of the sea. The way poor, patient Miss Sedgwick has to suffer!
Marie sits next her, you know, and while Miss Sedgwick ladles out the
soup, Marie ladles out the Archingtons. We have Papa North Avenue, with
his four millions, at breakfast; Mamma Archington, with her diamonds, at
dinner, and all the young Archingtons for supper."

The ringing of the study-bell dispersed the members of the Browning
Circle. As Anna and Zoe passed Mar