ed States Senator--by
purchase--had had experience of many oddities, male and female. She
also was attracted by Selma's sparkling delight, and by the magnetic
charm which she irradiated as a rose its perfume. "Pretty clothes are
attractive, aren't they?" said she, to be saying something.

"I don't know a thing about clothes," confessed Selma. "I've never
owned at the same time more than two dresses fit to wear--usually only
one. And quite enough for me. I'd only be fretted by a lot of things
of that kind. But I like to see them on other people. If I had my way
the whole world would be well dressed."

"Except you?" said Ellen Clearwater with a smile.

"I couldn't be well dressed if I tried," replied Selma. "When I was a
child I was the despair of my mother. Most of the people in the
tenement where we lived were very dirty and disorderly--naturally
enough, as they had no knowledge and no money and no time. But mother
had ideas of neatness and cleanliness, and she used to try to keep me
looking decent. But it was of no use. Ten minutes after she had
smoothed me down I was flying every which way again."

"You were brought up in a tenement?" said Miss Clearwater. Several of
the girls within hearing were blushing for Selma and were feeling how
distressed Jane Hastings must be.

"I had a wonderfully happy childhood," replied Selma. "Until I was old
enough to understand and to suffer. I've lived in tenements all my
life--among very poor people. I'd not feel at home anywhere else."

"When I was born," said Miss Clearwater, "we lived in a log cabin up in
the mining district of Michigan."

Selma showed the astonishment the other girls were feeling. But while
their astonishment was in part at a girl of Ellen Clearwater's position
making such a degrading confession, hers had none of that element in
it. "You don't in the least suggest a log cabin or poverty of any
kind," said she. "I supposed you had always been rich and beautifully
dressed."

"No, indeed," replied Ellen. She gazed calmly round at the other girls
who were listening. "I doubt if any of us here was born to what you
see. Of course we--some of us--make pretenses--all sorts of silly
pretenses. But as a matter of fact there isn't one of us who hasn't
near relatives in the cabins or the tenements at this very moment."

There was a hasty turning away from this dangerous conversation. Jane
came back from ordering the rearrangement of her luncheon