gnant glance, but she felt it was only what
she deserved.

Mrs. Hosmer never said anything further about a punishment; probably she
saw that the girl was already sufficiently punished. Nevertheless a most
humiliating punishment did come, in a way most unexpected.

The third evening after her fright, Esther was sitting up for the first
time since her illness. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and she
was feeling a little homesick in spite of Marie's efforts to entertain
her.

"What will you give me for a piece of good news, my little girl?" said
Mrs. Hosmer, entering the room, and looking at Esther's pale cheeks
disapprovingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer, is it anybody from home?" asked Esther, longingly.

"Here, Marie, read her the name on this card, and see if she says she is
at home to visitors," replied Mrs. Hosmer, playfully.

Marie took the card, and a moment after dropped it as though it had been
red-hot.

This was what met her eyes:

"Mrs. James Archington,
"44 North Avenue."

"Grandma--it's grandma," cried Esther, delightedly.

At the December meeting of the Browning Circle the girls discussed Marie
Smythe once more.

"It was the queerest thing," reported Anna Fergus, who knew the whole
story. "You see this Mrs. Archington is Esther's grandmother, and Marie
never knew it. She said so little to the poor girl that Esther had never
chanced to tell her. Talk about retributive justice, this is the most
direct piece of retribution I ever heard of. And the queerest part of it
is that Esther's grandmother is the _real_ North Avenue Archingtons,
while Marie's Cape May friends are a newly-rich family, who happen to
live on the same street with the others, but are not related to them at
all."

"But, girls," said Zoe Binnix, "it's been a splendid thing for Marie,
even if it has been humiliating. I never saw a more completely changed
girl. She's quite dropped her fine-lady airs and subsided into a
sensible being. She's so good now that Esther doesn't want to change her
room, though Mrs. Hosmer told her she might."

The girls were right in their opinion of Marie's change of character.
She grew up to be a sensible woman, singularly devoid of pretense or
affectation.

In after years she used to say that the one thing which had kept her
from growing up silly and affected was her experience with the North
Avenue Archingtons.

[_This story began in No. 42_]

PRIDE AND POVERTY: