hat she was ugly and awkward, and bound to see
everything with the darkest side up.

"I'm not as good as you," she answered evasively.

"Oh I'm not good," said Jean, with a little laugh, half a sigh, "I do
get real tired sometimes, Olive, and I do want to be straight and well
so much; but Miss Willis told me something in Sunday-school last Sunday,
that has made me feel so good; she said, 'Jeanie, don't get impatient or
discouraged, for God has a reason why he wants you to be lame; it is to
be for the best some way, and perhaps sometime you will see it;' and she
said that when I tried to be happy and bear my lame back, it made God
very happy; and when I was cross and fussy, it made him sad."

Olive gave her eyes a swift brush with the back of her hand, and asked
with a little choke, "Do you believe all that, Jean."

"Why, Olive, yes! Don't you?"

"I don't know,--who is that?" was Olive's rather disjointed answer, as
the click of the gate sounded through the still evening air.

"It's Ernestine, I know, 'cause she went up town;--yes, there she is;"
answered Jean, as a figure appeared under the foliage and came toward
the steps.

How different she looked from Olive and Jean. Such a slim, graceful
figure, with a proud little head and sunny shining hair, in loose puffs
and curls and a jaunty hat. A face like a fresh lily, and beautiful
brown eyes, the sweetest voice, and the vainest little heart ever known
to a girl of fifteen, had Ernestine Dering; and yet she was a favorite,
with all her little vanities, and home, without Ernestine's face, would
have been blank to all the girls. She came running up the steps and
stopped.

"Oh, Olive, such laces!" she cried, with a longing sigh. "They are
selling out at cost, and the ribbons and laces are just going for almost
nothing; if I had just had a little spending money I would have been in
clover. One clerk just insisted upon my taking an exquisite lace scarf;
oh it was so becoming! but I told him I didn't know they were selling
out, and that I would have to come again."

"Pretty way of talking!" snapped Olive ungraciously. "You know you won't
have any more money another day than you have this; why couldn't you say
no?"

"Say that I couldn't afford it?" cried Ernestine gayly. "Not I. Besides,
I reasoned that if one of you would loan me some, I'd have more another
day."

"Suppose one of us won't," said Olive, looking darkly over her sister's
pretty hat.

"I didn't supp