was that of the mystery of festivity and joy upon the face of the
earth, of which this Christmas wealth was the key.

The Brewsters had scarcely reached the factory neighborhood when
there was a swift bound ahead of them and the familiar whoop.

"There's that boy again," said Mrs. Zelotes.

She made various remonstrances, and even Andrew, when the boy had
passed his own home in his persistent dogging of them, called out to
him, as did Fanny, but he was too far ahead to hear. The boy
followed them quite to their gate, proceeding with wild spurts and
dashes from shadow to shadow, and at last reappeared from behind one
of the evergreen trees in the west yard, springing out of its long
shadow with strange effect. He darted close to Ellen as she passed
in the gate, crammed something into her hand, and was gone. Andrew
could not catch him, though he ran after him. "He ran like a
rabbit," he said, coming breathlessly into the house, where they
were looking at the treasure the boy had thrust upon Ellen. It was a
marvel of a patent top, which the boy had long desired to own. He
had spent all his money on it, and his mother was cheated of her
Christmas present, but he had given, and Ellen had received, her
first token of love.

Chapter XII

The next spring Ellen went to school. When a child who has reigned
in undisputed sovereignty at home is thrust among other children at
school, one of two things happens: either she is scorned and
rebelled against, and her little crown of superiority rolled in the
dust of the common playground, or she extends the territories of her
empire. Ellen extended hers, though involuntarily, for there was no
conscious thirst for power in her.

On her first morning at school, she seated herself at her desk and
looked forth from the golden cloud of her curls, her eyes full of
innocent contemplation, her mouth corners gravely drooping. She knew
one little girl who sat not far from her. The little girl's name was
Floretta Vining. Floretta was built on the scale of a fairy, with
tiny, fine, waxen features, a little tossing mane of flaxen hair,
eyes a most lovely and perfect blue, with no more depth in them than
in the blue of china, and an expression of the sweetest and most
innocent inanity and irresponsibility. Nobody ever expected anything
of this little Floretta Vining. She was always a negative success.
She smiled around from the foot of her curving class, and never had
her lessons, but